BBN #3

I was slightly surprised at the turnout, the day after the metro championships, but there were a good 8 or 9 sprinters on show. I, of course, showed up late, and so was playing catchup a bit - no surprises there.

After the warmup powerjump it was on to Flying 100s on 99", just working on the jump and the line, trying to keep low through turn 4. I generally do that fairly well, though today I ended up around the red, partly because the drill only went to the end of turn 3. Speed was okay at around 53-54, but not quite all-out.

After that was powerjumps out of turn 4 - one just to the end of the straight, then two for the full lap-and-a-a-bit. The idea was for the inside rider to keep the outside rider up high by not diving for the lane, an interesting tactic which seemed to work well, though I wasn't actually on the inside for any of the drills! For the second drill I was with Em, who kept me up high down the front straight but on 99" I just had too much rollout for her down the back straight. After that I was trio-d with Jarrod and John, and jumped from about 20m behind to pull around for the 'win'.

After that I dropped back down to 86" for a one-lap match sprint against Hayden, a chap who had randomly stopped by with his family and who proceeded to thump us all. He'll be in A-Grade next week if he keeps his promise to come along! Turns out he was a pursuiter with the AIS some 12 years ago. He's got an enormous jump, which I was hoping to negate by pumping the speed up high (hardly likely to happen in just one lap!) or by getting him going the wrong way and stealing a break. That latter almost worked coming through turn one - I pulled up the track, he started following and then I went to dive sharply down behind him while he was going the wrong way. He saw it though and turned steeper up the bank, leaving me to swerve back as I couldn't be sure I'd miss his rear wheel. A few seconds later he jumped and got a bit of a gap. I followed but pulled my wheel slightly - and was surprised that he didn't get as far away as I thought he would, 'only' winning by a second or so.

Nothing terribly exciting from the evening, solid training session but no notable results. This week is a taper for Round Three, and with any luck I'll actually do it properly this time and be in good shape for the weekend!