Rocky Cup on Wheels

Wow, this was quite an event. The races started out on Friday night around 6:30PM. When we arrived the track was transformed from what had been when we were training. They had bleachers set up all around the track, a bar at one end, and the track had been scrubbed clean. All the racers were set up on the north side of the track. Where there were a bunch of tents and plenty of rollers set up along the fence.


There were 3 races for me on Friday night, a scratch race, a 2333 meter handicap race and a Keirin race. I was moved up to the B grades for the race, so things were faster than I was used to in my previous 2 races. I think that I finished last or 2nd to last in the handicap, I was just not ready for the speed of people coming by me and I never was able to jump on their wheels. Same for the scratch race, when they started sprinting in the last lap, I just went backwards, my legs were just not there.

The Keirin (explanation here) was a neat event. I had never raced one, so it was new for me. We had a false start the first go around, but the second start was clean. The race was for 6 laps, when the motorbike pulled off with 1.5 laps to go, I thought I would have a go at jumping the bunch, that didn’t work too well and I finished at the back of the pack and did not advance to the finals. With my races over, we watched the rest of the events and then headed for some ice cream to end the night.