Decent day out at the Levin Track Carnival at the weekend (January 10, 2016) and cool to race on a new velodrome. Levin is 450m long with bankings of around 15 degrees. It’s much narrower too with no Cote d’Azur so that the grassy infield came right up to the track edge. It didn’t take long to get used to, in fact it was a buzz cornering at speed and really having to lean into it.
The racing certainly went well – I am now the Masters West Coast North Island points race champion, which is weird given I’m registered in Wellington but no one seemed bothered so I’ll take it.
Most eventful race was the Keirin. The moto driver ended up going so fast, one guy was dropped off the back. Then when he swung off, the guy right behind him got sucked onto the infield for a bit of impromptu cyclo cross.
The main trophy race, thankfully reduced by half to a five miler, showed up the difference in my speed compared to the young guns. Carne Groube, Daniel Cuff plus two others whose names I missed, attacked a couple of laps in like they were shot out of a cannon. The open grade field was rapidly reduced to small groups of riders taking turns to try and stay in it while that elite quartet battled it out at the head of the race. They too split into pieces with Groube powering ahead.
He lapped the trio of riders I was with towards the end, urging us to jump on his wheel. “Nah,” was the curt reply from the guy on the front of our group.
Despite a mystical points system that nobody except hopefully the officials could figure out, I also picked up the overall masters points prize for the day. Key take out as an event organiser was to keep things simple. It was a well run event but keeping everyone waiting for 90 minutes while they worked out final standings on the fly was less than ideal.
Cycle Wire 