Race Report - Points Race, US Track Nationals (August 30, 2002)
US Track Nationals Points Race Report
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So I'm sitting around in the infield wigging out and thinking to myself,
"I don't know if I'm going to make it through the heats let alone be able
to do anything in the final". It's been 2 years since I've really raced
the track and you can't just show up and be like, "everybody slow down
in the sprints for me ok?". Rain delays forced the officials to hold the
heats (2 heats, 60 laps/20 km each, 21 riders per heat, 12 qualify) and
the final (120 laps/40 km, 24 riders) in the same session, separated by
about 2 hours. But right now all I can think about is, "can I make it
through the damn heat????".
I'm in the first heat with Colby Pearce, Marty Nothstein, Jonas Carney,
Kenny Williams, Rad Cunningham and some other dudes. Looking at the
start sheet I think to myself, "come on it'll be OK". Sitting at the
rail I look at the fat guy in front of me and think, "if this guy makes
it and you don't, you have to quit bike racing". The heat starts and
it's like, "shit, I can't pedal fast enough on this puny 92 inch gear!".
I'm sinking to the back of the pack on sprint laps and thinking, "how
will I bridge to the move if I can't pedal fast enough to make a decent
attack?". But time goes by and the weak guys get tired, I pick up a
few points, and later in the race, sure enough, I bridge to the break
(Colby, Marty and a couple others) and we take the lap in time for
Colby to lead out Jonas for the final sprint, which he wins. Good,
that's over - mission accomplished, I made the freaking final. Will I
be able to do anything in the final? Not if I stick with the 48x14,
that's for sure. I ask Jame Carney what I should do and he tells me
to go 49x14 (translation - "gear up, slowpoke"). Jonas is gearing up
for the final, Colby's gearing up - it just seems like the cool thing
to do. I don't know if I have the leg strength to turn the bigger gear
at speed for 120 laps but I'll take my chances. Anything would be
better than the misery of trying to get my legs to go in perfect little
Jame Carney-I-pedal-160-rpms-and-I-don't-care circles.
Two hours passes by pretty quickly and I do my best to clear the crap
out of my legs in time for the final. A lot of lying around, drinking
gatorade, putting my legs up to get the garbage to drain out. The men's
kilo goes off and Marty scratches from his heat - he's gunning for the
points race, it would seem. So the players in this little game are
going to be Jame, Colby and Marty. These are the riders to watch. Guys
with horsepower and no team obligations include Kenny Williams, Rad
Cunningham, and Mike Pudlinski seems to be riding strong. John Walrod
and Jonas Carney will ride in support of Jame. Ryan Oelkers will probably
be helping Marty, his Madison partner.
For me, the best tactics for this race are to wait until the move forms,
then bridge to it if I can. I have a big gear and I have enough energy
to make a few big efforts with it, but not much else. I know I don't
have the legs to sprint and recover repeatedly. I have to make my race
by laps, not points. So I have to consider the main players in the race
and the riders who have the strength to make a move stick. I can't just
blindly bridge to any break that gets a decent gap.
The race goes off and the first few sprints are uneventful. Jame's
winning them all, of course (he's won the points race for like the last
seventy years in a row). A few breaks go off, but the combination of
riders is not right and I sit in the back of the field and wait. My
gear feels better and I start to gain a little bit of confidence. With
about 85 laps to go, after numerous attacks, chases, and counterattacks,
Jame gets off the front with Kenny Williams, Mike Pudlinksi and Rad
Cunningham. Marty seems to have been neutralized for the time being
by his previous efforts. A chase group of 3 riders is up the track and
I decide that it's now or never. Joey D'Antoni attacks and bridges to
the chase group. I bridge to Joey D and sit on him while he closes the
rest of the gap. The chase group is weak, they don't have the
horsepower to make it up to the break. I have to recover while they
rotate through, and when it's my turn to pull, I have to bridge to the
break and leave these guys behind. I recover as best I can and when I
hit the front, instead of taking my half-lap pull and swinging up in
proper breakaway fashion, I stand up and take off with full force. In
the back of my mind I think to myself that the break won't be going all
out, since it's better for them to eat up sprint points for as long as
they can before lapping the field - so I have a chance. I reach top
speed, hang there for a while, and slowly start to fade as the distance
between me and the break gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller....
ARGH! I made it, BARELY. Nobody else in the field crossed that gap.
Colby Pearce had the strength to make it (and then some), but Marty
Nothstein glued himself to Colby's wheel, so after four or five massive
attacks Colby decided enough was enough and he would have to wait for
another opportunity, rather than give Nothstein a free ride to the break.
I feel like I'm going to die, or, in Jame's words, "dude when I saw you
in that break you looked like you were going to give birth to a live
chicken - I was thinking to myself, 'I don't want to be Dave right
now....'". I didn't want to be Dave right then either. I wanted to be
chilling out on a beach, sipping foo-foo drinks in between naps. I
wanted to be cruising down a ski slope through 3 feet of fresh pow,
dewde (AW YEAH). I wanted to be back in junior high getting beat up by
the big kids - anything but this.
Whoever said "Pain is weakness leaving the body" was right. After
hanging a couple bike lengths off the back of the break for what
seems like 1000 years, I recover enough to get on the wheel and stay
there. Another 10 laps or so, and I'm ready to do my share of the
work. I sit out the sprints, because (1) I don't want to go over
the redline again and not be able to recover, and (2) I don't feel
justified sprinting when I've spent so much time sitting on the
break. At this point in the race, I'm guaranteed a podium spot
as long as nobody else laps the field - and that's fine with me. I
mean, I finished an Ironman triathlon 5 days ago, I can't believe
I even made the final, let alone bridged to the lap break!
With around 60 laps to go, we lap the field. Jame goes straight to
the front, his teammates (Jonas and Walrod) join him along with
Rad Cunningham, and they ride tempo to neutralize any further attacks.
This works for about 25 laps until Nothstein bridges to an attack by
Doug Beck (Minneapolis sprinter turned points racer). Jame, though,
is the master of the race, and he's right on Marty's wheel. The
three of them get a big gap and it looks like they'll stay away.
If these extra two riders lap the field, I slip down to seventh in
the standings, and I don't want that to happen. Jame already lapped,
so his 2 laps will merely seal the race as his. The winner of this
race will be nominated to the Worlds team, so Jame wants to wrap it
up. I decide to make an attempt to bridge across, although the gap
looks a little too big by the time I'm in a position to go. If I
can bridge this gap and stay on, I'm a lock for the silver medal.
It's worth a shot.
I attack over the top at full throttle as the field surrenders to
the break. Time passes, the gap to the break shrinks - quickly at
first, then slowly, then not at all. This break is moving a lot
faster than the last one was - somebody's motoring it, and it can
only be Jame. I'm within maybe 25 meters of them and I hear a voice
behind me. I think to myself (barely able to think coherent thoughts),
"who could have crossed that gap to me? It can't be..." - but it's
Colby Pearce. Ah, that answers the question. Now that Marty is
off the front, Colby's hands are untied and he can bridge without
Nothstein gluing himself to his wheel. Colby takes a pull and by
this point I'm so cross-eyed I can barely ride a straight line. He
figures out that I'm cooked and says, "just get on my wheel!". My
legs can't do it and I'm in serious difficulty - thinking that maybe
I'll get dropped by the field when they catch me. Or maybe I'll
just fall over and die. I watch Colby go, and he (incredibly)
crosses the remaining gap and joins the break, which by this point
has almost two thirds of a lap on the field due to Jame "I am a
motorcycle" Carney's efforts.
I swing up the track and wait for the field. A chase group catches
me and I latch onto them, barely. The chase group has Kenny Williams
in it, but the other guys are tired and they've given up. There's no
way at this point that the gap will be closed. Jame is a lock for
the victory. I slip down to 8th place but at this point my main
ambition is not to get dropped by the field and lose the lap I worked
so hard to gain.
With 20 laps to go, the break laps the field. The pace picks up again
and the weaker riders start to crack. Six or seven or maybe eight
guys at the back of the field get gapped by an acceleration, and I
(surfing the tail of the field) realize that they're cooked, so I
ride across to the next group, which coalesces with the groups ahead
of it, leaving those other riders off the back - they'll lose a lap.
The remaining laps pass by pretty quickly and I recover enough to be
lucid by the end. Ahhh, another Nationals points race all wrapped up.
Jame has the victory and is a lap up on everyone else (and has more
points than anyone else). Nothstein is second, 1 lap down on Jame.
Then it's Kenny Williams in 3rd, a late-charging Colby Pearce in 4th,
and Rad Cunningham in 5th to round out the podium. Mike Pudlinksi,
Doug Beck, myself, Mark Gorman and Ryan Oelkers round out the top ten.
Full results are at this website:
http://www.veloresults.com/results02/elite_track/men/mpoints_race.htm
Notice the time - 50:47 for 40 km. That's an average speed of 47.25
km/hr, or nearly 30 mph. It takes some doing to gain a lap on a pack
going that fast - let alone two laps.
Mike Gladu was at the race taking photos. They should be available
at this website soon:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/track/2002/aug02/USTC02/?id=photos
Mike says he got a couple shots of me with my tongue hanging out,
suffering unbearable pain. I hope so, because I want to have something
to remind me why I do this stuff.
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