Sprint Tournament on Wednesday
I’ve been getting lots of questions about the upcoming Sprint Tournament on Wednesday so I thought it would be a good time to give a little more information. Let me begin by saying that everyone should attend! Don’t be fooled by its competitive title, “tournament” should really be taken in the loosest version of the word.
We’ll start the night off by having everyone do a flying 200 meter time trial (3.5 laps where,on our track, only the last lap is timed). This is how all sprint tournaments start and it’s used to seed the sprint rounds. Typically a predetermined number of riders, “X” will advance through to the sprint competition. This could be as many as 24 and as few as 4, it really depends on the level of competition and the race organizer. From there the fastest rider would meet the slowest rider to qualify. If for example X=16 than X1 would race X16, X2 would race X15, and so on. For our purposes this will merely help group riders of similar speed.
Once we know how everyone stacks up we’ll run a round robin so that riders race people of similar speed/ability. Since we only have a maximum of two riders on the track at a time the race is hardly “mass start” which is why even people that haven’t taken the Learn to Race can compete. Having said that, all participants must have graduated the Novice training session in order to participate.
Our goal will be to have everyone ride at least three sprint rounds, not including the Flying 200m TT. It’s possible that we may get more riding time but it’s impossible to say since it’s all drop-in. Either way racing will start promptly at 7:00pm. Open track begins at 6:00 so be sure to come early enough to warm up. It’s also a good idea to bring your rollers since there’s lots of recovery between efforts.
Your goal should be to have a fun workout that trains race craft and top end speed. If, for whatever reason, you find the sprinting is too easy…put a smaller gear on and push yourself. Remember to go in with a plan, try something new; you might surprise yourself and find that it works. And, while you’re figuring out what you want to do, just scratch track stands from the list. Yeah they’re kinda cool…when you’re a World Champion, but at the grassroots level, you’re just killing time for everyone else. That and, realistically, few sprinters track stand on the world level anymore (so, when in Rome…).
Last, but not least, we’ll have sprinting at our last Feature Friday Night Race Series event. The sprinting on Friday will be a continuation of the sprinting on Wednesday. The top four riders will be invited to compete on Friday in an exhibition match that goes straight to 1/4 finals. If you want in on the action just let us know on Wednesday when you’re signing up.
