Nicht so gut

Things weren't stellar today. Dan experimented with a big gear in the pursuit, went out flying then hit a big wall the final km. He was third in qualifying which of course isn't bad, but he missed the time standard time by 7 hundredths of a second and almost certainly would have made it with a different gear. The feds talked to him afterwards but weren't very sympathetic... all they commented on was how close he came and what a shame it was.

The scratch race heats were the usual negative style of miss n' out racing. Alan was in the first heat and was racing well but missed a split halfway through the race and had to spend some time working in a chase group. The split came together and he was up there in the sprint, but was just a little boxed in and finished just outside the qualifying positions. There was no keeping him down though, as a surprise visit from his wife and his first mass start event on the boards made him a pretty happy man.

I was in the final heat, and things didn't go much better. My legs felt like I hadn't ridden in weeks, so I was really conservative and tried to just follow wheels and hope they were the right ones. I was surprised that the field didn't seem to pay any attention to who was rolling away... they would chase random guys like their lives depended on it then let Roman Kilun and Jaques-Maynes just ride off the front. I tried getting in a few moves but no one was working and everyone was chasing. The final sprint wasn't very fast but it was three-up and I was stuck in the poll lane, so there wasn't anywhere to go. These qualifying heats seem to play out like elimination races, and it's easy to ride the whole race, not qualify, and still not feel like you ever did anything. The points race is tomorrow and I'm more enthused about that, so we'll see what happens. Hopefully the jello will be shaken out of my legs by then...