Waterford

Another fun year at the Waterford raceway. This year a premier 50 mile hpv race was scheduled on Sunday instead of the shorter lap races of the past. The 200foot flying sprint, hillclimb/coastdown, Kilo, and 12lap race made up Saturday's events. The thought was to draw out the serious competitors eager for the bigger race, unfortunately only a handful of us made it out. Truly a shame as this course is a blast.

Once again I'm racing a borrowed bike, many thanks to Rick Gritters for loaning me his #4 race bike. Its nice to be in the same slipstream as my competition. I've come to the realization that I just don't have the free resources mid-season to build, so the projects will have to wait til this fall.

Saturday's events went well with placing strongly in the top three in every event, finishing second overall in Stock class. The twelve lap race was a good indicator for races to come, with a four bike paceline for the majority of the race. A little strange having to use USCF tactics during an HPRA race, as they are not typically pack racing venues. And just like a USCF race I did too much work and lost 1st and 2nd to the sprint.

Sunday's race was a little different as well. Sean asked if I was going to do anything stupid like go hard from the start, well someone had to, and since Frank couldn't make it, well... Seemed to work pretty well. I just kept my pace high for the duration, hit the hill hard every time, and squeezed every inch out of the track that I could. Warren caught up to me after several laps and we shared the work load best we could, but eventually the hill took its toll on Warren. Sean was trying to conserve his energy from the start and payed for it by being gapped off quite a bit right off the line. Before Warren popped Sean was slowly catching up, but afterwards they both slid way back. Had the race been a couple laps longer I would have lapped them both as they were only about 100 feet ahead of me at the finish. Too bad Northbrook doesn't have a hill.

FAST 50 Results
(1) Rick Gritters, Age40-55, Streamliner, 36laps, 30.29mph, 51.16miles
(2) John Simon, Age40-55, Streamliner, 36laps, 30.18mph, 51.16miles
(3) Dennis Grelk,Age39under, Stock, 31laps, 25.84mph, 44.06miles
(4) Sean Costin, Age40-55, Stock, 30laps, 25.13mph, 42.64miles
(5) Warren Beauchamp, Age40-55, Stock, 30laps, 25.13mph, 42.64miles
(6) Dave Balfour, Age40-55, Streamliner, 30laps, 24.87mph, 42.64miles
(7) Tony Leland, Age40-55, Streamliner, 30laps, 24.87mph, 42.64miles
(8) Jeff Hunn, Age40-55, Stock, 29laps, 23.63mph, 41.21miles
(9) Mike Mowett, Age39under, SuperStreet, 28laps, 23.41mph, 39.79mile
(10) Rich Sadler, Age56over, SuperStreet, 27laps, 21.90mph, 38.37mile
(11) Paul Pancella, Age40-55, Stock, 25laps, 20.41mph, 35.53miles
(12) Paul Bruneau, Age39under, SuperStock, 24laps, 19.86mph, 34.11mile
(13) Bruce Gordon, Age56over, SuperStreet, 23laps, 19.51mph, 34.11mile
(14) Wally Kiehler, Age40-55, SuperStreet, 23laps, 22.98mph, 32.69mile
(15) Jim Iwaskow, Age40-55, Stock, 23laps, 18.61mph, 32.69miles
(16) Bill Frey, Age56over, SuperStreet, 21laps, 16.87mph, 29.85miles
(17) Maria Castrejon, Women, SuperStock, 16laps, 13.03mph, 22.74miles


Anyway, this wasn't the full test I was expecting without Frank and Alan present, but it was an encouraging result. Especially considering that I was racing with a bruised hip and ribs from last weeks mtb race, and about 500miles training on a bent this year(368 of that being at the Sebring 24h). So maybe I'll get a few more miles in before Northbrook, and hopefully we'll get a few more fast people to race against.
See ya in July.