8/27 Scratch Race

The Twilight Series is over. Long live the Twilight Series. I love having a night of track racing each week but by the end of the season it gets hard and exhausting. Add some internal pressure - I really wanted to win the scratch race. I really, really wanted to win the last omnium of the regular season. That Big John upgraded to a 3 made it a little easier, but there are some definite powerhouses. Giancarlo Bianchi of WS United is a particular racer to watch and to fear. In the second half of the season he's done very well and makes the races very fast and very hard with some devastating attacks that usually wind up with him riding away from the field. To wit, the 8/12 feature race.

Some sleek, lean new rider I'd never seen before went off the front immediately, opened a quarter lap gap, and stayed there, and a lap later I was monitoring a concerted chase from three wheels back. When the rider was reeled in there was a bit of cat-and-mousing on the front, some accelerations, but I watched for Giancarlo's counterattack, and when he stood up on the inside, slightly boxed in but coming out of it, I jumped right after him.

He goes fast. I'm sprinting at 90% after him and he's holding it, flying. He looks back, sees me, accelerates, I stay on his wheel, barely, he holds up and he accelerates again, keeps trying to snap the whip as it were. The 11-rider pack is a long, thin line. He's got one more acceleration but I won't let him go. He's trying to break me and everyone else but tonight I just don't want to let him... but I'm so near the end of my rope just holding on to his wheel.

And all of a sudden, there's one lap to go, Giancarlo's attack is neutralized, and I'm three wheels back again, with the first breakaway first wheel, the guy who wouldn't let go of my wheel when I was following Giancarlo, and me. It's been hard, the pace is slow, and we're rounding turn 2 going into the headwind on the backstretch and I jump at the 200 meter mark, come around lime green, sprint through the corner in a wide lane, Austin on my hip, and enter that mushy, slow-motion high-speed headspace that I go in a sprint. And I throw my bike and win the race by a half a wheel.

I kind of wanted to put my hands in the air or something but the times I've won a race out at Kissena, I'm not elated - I'm just relieved that it's over and that I didn't screw something up. Last night I didn't screw it up - and this morning the elation comes.