Tuesday Nights at the Track

Racing under the lights at Kenosha's Washington Park Velodrome is one of the most fun things I have done this summer. Last night I was fortunate enough to have my numero uno fan there to take some nice photos of the event.


I raced at Kenosha last night, for my 3rd straight week of track racing. The 1st race I did was an 8 lap "scratch" race. Meaning you just ride for 8 laps and whoever is ahead at the end of the 8th wins. Sounds straightforward enough. Well, with 3 or 4 laps to go I launched an attack off the front of the field. This is tactically stupid because everyone can see you and you have no slipstream to launch out of. But I am racing in the Cat 4/5 races, so I like to mix it up anyway. I launched pretty well though and got a little distance on the main group. I was hoping one of the faster riders would bridge up and then we could work together and get 1st and second. Instead, I looked back and the oldest fattest guy out there had followed me out. I knew there was no way I was going to make it with just him, so I decided to sit up and rejoin the pack. In the background I could hear the track announcer saying something like "I don't really understand that move by Rauch!" Well, guess what, I wasn't going to pull old fatty around the track while the rest of the strong riders sat in the group and saved energy just to beat me at the end. Anyway, we sprinted it out with about 2/3 of a lap to go, I hung in the front and ended up 4th overall out of about 20 guys.

Here we are hanging on to the fence getting ready to start

The first lap is a neutral lap, to allow everyone to get clipped into their pedals and ready to go

Here we are around the half way point, things are starting to heat up a bit

This is the moment I realized I wasn't going to get any help at all in my breakaway attempt.
As a side note, the big fella is riding on a $1500 set of carbon wheels... nice. Worth more than all 4 of my bikes combined.


Here are the four leaders going into the final turn of the last lap. With me bringing up the rear.

Grinding it out to the end. Sara wishes my head was up so she could have caught my "pain face"

Crossing the line with one eye over my shoulder to watch for late breakers, not tonight.

My other race for the night was a "Miss Out" race. In this style of racing the person who finishes in last at the end of each lap has to leave the track. So, the field is whittled down till the final three riders and then those three race each other for 1 final lap to determine 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. I got 5th in this race, but it left me a little bummed because I got nosed out at the line by a skinny little girl. Also, in this race a guy bounced into my back wheel, I heard the sound of metal hitting the track and I looked back and saw a guy laying on the track. He turned out to be okay, but he went down pretty hard after bouncing off me. I am glad I stayed upright, I was on my friend's nice track bike. That could have been bad.

Overall it was a great night. At the end we had to leave a bit early to get our unborn child home to rest.