By James Tainter, NSC Systems Programmer/Masters Track Cyclist
A few more of the locals raced today, including myself. Dave Gray and Kevin Schaeffer participated in 45-49 3K time trail. Dan Casper and I participated in the 40-44 3K time trail, Linda Sone-Casper in the points race and Greg McCrea (50-54) and Pat Whalen in (60-65) 200TT and match sprints. Linda raced tonight and I haven't heard how she made out yet, but I did hear she scored some points. The performance of the day goes to Pat Whalen. Pat shaved a HALF a SECOND off of his personal best 200 time, and in the 200 meter time trail that is HUGE. Pat qualified 7th and the top eight go on to match sprinting, so Pat made the cut. In the first round he had to race the 2nd fastest qualifier, a guy who posted a time an entire second faster than him, but that didn't deter Pat at all. Pat road the sprint rounds like a pro even though he doesn't have much match sprint experience and this is really his first 'big' competition. Watching him you would have though he was and old, surly pro at it. Pat unfortunately lost both of his rides (best 2 out of 3) and went on to race in a 4-up sprint to determine 5th-9th place. At nationals, medals are given to the first 5 places. Pat had to win this ride if he wanted to medal. Again, he road smart and strong, and it came down to a two man race for the line, with Pat closing on the leader, but running out of room to the finish line. Pat finished 6th other all. Hats off to Pat - congratulations!! Greg also threw down a 200TT but did not make the cut for the sprinting. I didn't get to chat with him to see if it was a personal best time for him or not, but today was Greg's last day of racing - so hats off to him as well for coming out and performing in the 500 (personal best time), 2K and 200!
The 3K is a new beast to sprinter-type Dave Gray. But you wouldn't have known it today - Dave set a schedule and target time he wanted to ride and stuck it. I think there will be more pursuits in Dave's future. Kevin also road a 3K - but Kevin went out a little 'hot' in his first 1000m and it took a little out of his legs. But for going out as fast as he did, he was able to hold it together and post his fastest pursuit time since he was out here with me back in '06 for nationals. Kevin has been working hard and this was a great time for him. Though if you ask "Skibby" he more than likely won't be that happy with it - even though, as I mentioned, it was is fastest one in 3 years! I don't know where their times placed them with the other participants - I didn't have time to look because Dan and I were preparing for our 3K efforts that immediately followed theirs on the program.
To put it bluntly, Dan and I have an 'anomoly' in our age group called Kenny Williams. You may remember the name from my first post (Kenny won the kilo on Tuesday night). Not to sound like I have a defeatist attitude, but being realistic, I pretty much knew Kenny would win this event. I also assumed that Jason Sprouse (new comer to our age group who handedly won the pursuit last year at Nationals in the 35-39 bracket) would be a solid second place. But after that it was a crap shoot. There were 4-5 of us that could end up in any order, we are all that close.
Dan road in the 5th heat (there were 8 total). Dan put together a GREAT ride, shaving 2 seconds off his personal best time, putting himself atop the leader board. A rider in the next heat bested Dan's time bumping him to 2nd overall. Heat 7 were the big guns - Kenny and Jason. These two were incredible to watch, both reeling off top times for the day - Kenny setting a WORLD RECORD for our age group in the process! So with one heat left (mine) Dan was sitting in 4th place. If we both bested Dan's time, he would be out of the medals.
I was pitted against Mike Hutchinsen, a road rider who has recently discovered the track. I beat Mike by a 100th of a second last year in San Jose and he reminded me of that when we ran into each other at the track the day before! I figured I would have a hard ride on my hands. I had a schedule and time down I wanted to hit. There was no way I was going to touch Kenny's time, so I didn't try to adjust anything for my ride; I would stick to my schedule/plan and try to lift at the end if I had anything left in the tank in order to try and catch Jason. I ended up riding 'close' to what I wanted to - being cautious not to go out to fast and burn myself up prematurely as I had seen a number of riders do prior to my heat. Like Dan, I too shaved 2 seconds off my personal best time. Mike was off his game a bit and I was able to better him this time around. Dan's time withstood Mike's challenge so the two Minnesota guys ended up 3rd and 5th!! It was great to have us both up on the podium. Going in I didn't really care how it sorted out, just as long as we were both up there.
Kenny (3:26)
Jason (3:31)
James (3:34.2)
???? (3:34.8)
Dan (3:35)
I will try to post pictures soon. Tomorrow: 200TT and match sprinting for Ted Schmid and myself.
Will have an update for you tomorrow after the dust settles.
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