Track again - without the splinters!

Last night at the track:

I got to listen to Super-rookie and Stratton go nuts about NASCAR. SS swears that I'll soon be hooked, but I'm skeptical.

Other than that, I managed to get back on the track one week after my run-in with it's wooden surface. There were 9 ladies there! It was quite a turnout, even with a lot of the regulars missing. If we were to get all the girls up to the track on the same night, we might even get a whopping 15 women!

Anyway, we had a snowball race first. Usually I hate the snowball races because the points only go to the first person across the line, which is usually not me, but somehow I managed to do well in this one. There was a girl out visiting from New York - she took the 2 points on the first bell lap. Next time I heard the bell, I attacked early and got 3 points, and the "MN Sprint Champ" UofM girl came with me and we got a little break. So we decided to go for it. Somehow I managed to get the next sprint as well for 4 points, which meant I had the race in the bag (unless the New Yorker caught our break) because the final sprint was only worth 6 points. Good thing, because I didn't get the final sprint.

Then we did the miss n out. For some reason the miss n out is my favorite race, even though routinely come in second. So last night, I was fairly determined NOT to get second place. I set the pace for most of the race, then the New York girl did for a while, and bit by bit people were getting eliminated. Finally it came down to just me and an Alan girl. She was on my wheel as they rang the bell for the last lap, and then I attacked with three quarters of a lap to go. She stuck on my wheel and then started to come around on the final straight. She would have had me if the finish line was a meter later, but I managed to pull off my first miss n out win by about half a foot.

The last race of the night was a 30 lap points race. Ugh, it was hard. We piddled along for the first couple laps. Bob, the announcer, even said, "and they're off like a pack of turtles" as we started. Then Stratton threw out a monster attack from up high out of the turn and got 50 meters on the field in the blink of an eye. The girl from New York went with her and they picked up some points on the first bell lap. Then the field brought them back and then another break formed with me, UofM girl, Alan girl and NY girl. I think I may have won one of the sprints, and then got a good gap on the field. I decided to try to solo off the front for a bit, which worked out well for a while, but then I got caught 5 laps later about 2 meters before the line (on a points lap). Bummer. Oh well. I picked up a few other points through the rest of the race, but I was pretty cooked from the little solo effort. I think I probably got third or so, but I was just psyched for such awesome racing - it was a fun group last night and we had some really fun races!! In spite of getting my butt kicked in the last race, I took the omnium, and that always makes me happy.

Now it's off to Downer's Grove for the weekend.