alpenrose avc

started the weekend off watching per break the kilo record and james win the qualifier points race on friday. first up for me was a keirin heat. lots of fast dudes, all the heats were stacked. i had duvendeck, billington and some other guns in mine, the first heat. i timed the jump perfect and help off duvendeck for the win! i wasnt as lucky in my semi-final ride. 3 moved on to the fianl but as everything stacked up in turn 3 and there was some contact and wobbling, i let off the gas and i was gapped off and headed for the 7-12 minor final.

before that i got to race the madison with jason allen as the last event of the morning session. everything was going well and then i was behind the team of dan harm and james strangeland and somebody lost control and got pulled off their bike. i thought the carnage might go up track from me, but when they hit the ground the trajectory changed and i was heading right for a bike and body at 30mph. i was able to lock it up and turn 90 degrees to the apron in to the grass, not hit any non racers including candi, and get back on the track in a matter of seconds. if it were on video, i might be as famous as the tank. they stopped the race for a minute to clean up the carnage (dans shoulder was messed up, get well soon) and then restarted everyone in about the spots that we were in. after that jason and i just started dropping teams and eventually lapped everyone before the last sprint which we also won. his bars came loose somewhere in there as well and he left me out solo for about 5 laps. good fun.

after the break was the 7-12 keirin minor final. looked more like a stacked final with dean tracy, kelyn akuna and steven mclaughry. the sprint was kinda long but tactical and not full throttle til the last straight. somehow i found enough to get around kelyn and hold off dean for the win (7th

place.)

luciano stoked about my win

photo-dean alleger

after that was a team sprint. it was dean and per with me riding 1st wheel. when i started it took my legs a bout a second to go but then eventually got going ok but not soon enough. dean and per killed the rest of it but we ended up second to the team of kelyn, adam duvendeck and travis smith who ended up breaking the track record. not to bad. i decided that i would start the points race, but probably not finish it to save some legs for the scratch. i won the 2nd points sprint and quit.

photo-dean alleger

sundays 60 lap scratch race was really fun. every lap was worth $3 to the first rider and $2 the the second rider every lap, so the pace was brisk almost the whole time. i figured id collect some cash in the first half and while keeping an eye on everyone.eventually i told myself that i wouldnt go for anymore lap premes but when id get close to the front it got really tempting to get "just one more." there were quite a few drastic moves inside on 10 to go and i chased everyone of them and at 2 to go when the real moved happened i got caught in traffic for a moment but still managed a 4th and i had won the most lap preme money!$48 dollars just in lap money. ha. jame won and beardsley got 2nd.

photo-cheryl j. wilson

my legs didnt come back around for the miss n out so not much to report there but the weekend was totally freaking awesome. amelia and andrea broke the ladies team sprint record and jen won the keirin and the sprints. big ups to charlie warner for making thi event a success. its awesome to hear people be so stoked on our avc en thought the track is a little quirky. next weekend is the fsa grand prix in seattle!

state champs.

day1-kilo
i dont fancy myself as much of a kilo rider but i have to do one at nationals as part of the int'l omnium event. i rode a 1:12.00. good enough to win that night and a pretty good time but id really have liked to make it into the 1:11's.

day 2-playing sprinter
getting the legs moving the morning after my kilo was a little rough. i rode a 12.5 200m and top seed rode an 11.86. i lost my first ride to danchez by just screwing around for too long and him getting a better half lap jump on me. i got back in thru the reps and then had to ride stephen mclaughrey. i figured that was probably not going to work out well for me since he qualified more than half a second faster than i did, but my legs were starting to loosen up. he tried to razor me from the front but had a good acceleration and came around at the line. next i rode per and it was a fun tactical sprint with a good ole fasioned back straight drag race and i got clear by turn 4.
so all of a sudden (not really, it was a long day) i was in the final ride with mister top seed kevin manskirt. we also had a fun ride. he hade his move and i got on the wheel for a second and then ran it hard. i had caught and was coming around him between 3 and 4 when he hooked me nice and clean and i backed out and jumped about to the stayers line. lesson learned. 2nd place!


then was the keirin. i won my heat with stephen and mark from bike central, john kim and the tank in it but the final was postponed til a later date because there was a crash in the womens race. anna from bike central fell and broke a peice in her lower abck. she had surgery and i believe is going to make a full recovery.

day 3-points race
i didnt know if i was going to do this race after drinking andwhatnot the night before but i fgured id at least head out there. i was excited to race with james again. they cut the race down from 150 laps to 100 which was fine by me. i spent a good bit of time on the front keeping the pace kinda high. spent a little time off the front and in the end had a pretty good time. james and i went 2nd and 1st, respectively. then we partied hard in the MOTORDOME (tm) and i saw a movie in the theater for the first time in a couple years.

next up alpenrose AVC!

2009 Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge, July 17-19 (Portland, OR) from Charles Warner on Vimeo.

wtf

my bay area trip was nice except for the racing part. hellyer avc. first race was the keirin heats, pretty stacked. i made a good move, but executed it poorly. instead of suprising everyone over the top, i floated to the front and then gave everyone a nice lead out. i didnt even make it to a rep ride but theres a cool picture!

photo:ken conley kwc.org

next miss n out. a little squirrelly. i think i finished 11th out of 35. one behind hayden godfrey so i guess not too bad, but i could have been smarter. dave mc coo, my madison partner got 3rd. but i think he might have spent a match or two that we could have used in our madison that was the next race i did.

we were looking good after scoring in the first 2 sprints then everything went to hell. dave missed my hand or something and he got gapped off pretty hard. i did my best to work on closing it down as best i could and when we made some progress, we missed another crucial exchange. that was pretty much it. we got lapped by the main group but were left to think how different it would have been if we hadnt missd those exchanges.

the next day things really went to shit. the feilds for some races filled up really fast, and when i registered a month early, the scrath race was full and i was 2nd on the waiting list. i went to check in and i was told that i hadnt made it on the start list yet even tho i knew of a few people that were registered that werent racing. but whatever, my teammate, tank, saidi could have his spot and that was good enough for the registration coodinater that i was talking to. so as im about to get my last warm up in someone suggested that i double check that i was actually on the start list so i did. and a different guy told me that i was not on the start list and if i didnt like it i could "go home." a little uncalled for i told him that i was taking my teamates spot and he flipped shit saying that he was incharge and that if my teammate scartched that someone that wasnt me would get the spot. aparntly i had made my way to the bottom of the start list because i wasnt local or sucking his dick. there were cat 3 that got placed ahead of me. totally bs. brian went over to talk to the guy and he yelled at brian over the mic that he didnt realize was on. i cant even begin to explain who fucked this who scene was but trust me it was bad. and that guy, rick adams, is an official at the alpenrose avc. gee, awesome.

so after that debacle, i was told by dave mccook that he had misunderstood when the alpenrose sixday was and couldnt make it up. sweet 1 day notice to find a partner!! at this point i was so stressed out taht i decided not to do the points race and drink beer instead and try to find someone to race te sixday with me. after talking with a million people i convinced this kid maurice monge from san jose to come up even tho he had never been to alpenrose.

so monday, day 1 we get to the track and some of my crucial track stuff was still in brians car so i had to wait til he got there to get on the track with maurice. we ended up getting about 10 minutes on the track before racing started with the madison pursuits. just like a regular pursuit but youre doing madison exchanges during it. we got a lap and a half in and a roadie that i had never seen at the track before slid down the banking right in front of a blazing fast maurice and maurice broke his arm. i rode the madison pursuit solo later on and qualified us for the a group, but opted not to find a partner. maurice got surgery the next day.

so yeah its been a slight rough patch for me. there were points races for non sixday racers on thursday and saturday and i won those. not really making up for not riding at winning the six though.