Circuit Racing (in a world championship)
Submitted by David Dyer on 2 August 2013 - 11:50am
I thought I would share my first experience of circuit racing. I was down at Goodwood Motor Circuit last weekend for a two lap 5 mile Eliminator Race. All 24 riders complete the first lap, but at 7 points around the second lap the final 2 are eliminated meaning that only 10 race on for the finish. I was in the third heat, but as the second heat had a false start, we were called to the line quicker than expected. We had a quick safety briefing: broadly ‘obey marshals, be careful and don’t cut others up at corners’ and we were off.
As the top 24 riders on time from all the heats went through to the final there was an incentive to keep the pace high and about half way round the first lap some gaps were appearing. I was pleased to keep up with a group of 8 at the front and looking back it was clear that we could avoid worrying about being eliminated and concentrate on a good time. As a group we kept together until about a third of the way around the second lap when the pace upped a bit. Five riders broke clear and I had to try and catch them on my own as the other 2 couldn’t join in. Although I kept the leaders in sight I couldn’t close in on them which meant a long spell on a fairly windy day on my own. However with about 500m to go, I noticed 1 of the 5 had been dropped and made it my mission to catch him which I did on the final straight, drafted him for a bit then overtook him just before the line.
There was quite a wait to discover whether the time of my 5th place finish would be good enough to make the final. The first publication of the results put me as 13th overall but after some protests from some who missed out, that was later revised to 16th and finally 17th! For the final, a couple of hours later, the pace was noticeably quicker than for the heat (mostly going at 25mph) on the first lap but the pack mostly stayed together. By the end of the first lap a couple had been tailed off so that meant the rest of us did not have to worry about the first elimination. However then it all got a bit hairy. Turning into the wind and up a slight incline, nobody wanted to lead out, whilst those at the back were conscious of the next elimination point. A number of riders kept touching their brakes as the field bunched. Fortunately the track was quite wide, so I decided to keep wide to avoid being boxed in although it meant taking much of the force of the wind. This turned out to be a good decision as someone in the pack wobbled and five came down in a crash. Four remounted to finish the race, but one was taken to hospital (not serious injuries though).
The motor cycle outrider stopped to aid the fallen and because of this the eliminations were stopped. In the aftermath one rider sprinted clear but on an open track and a windy day he was soon caught. I did briefly experiment with leading for a while but it was hard work and didn’t last long. Approaching the final straight a group of about 10 pushed clear and I eventually came in 14th seven seconds behind the winner having averaged over 23mph for the 5 miles, but checking the results afterwards I saw I was the leading vet for which I was presented with a gold medal my first cycling prizes courtesy of the sponsors.
Oh, did I not mention that we were all racing on Bromptons?! This was part of the Brompton World Championship, so that made me the Brompton Eliminator Race Veteran World Champion 2013!
There was also a 500m sprint race in which I also got to the vets final finishing 5th and the mass 4 lap main world championship race in which I came 69th out of 626 (and 4th vet, so just missed out on a podium place). To no-one’s surprise, Michael Hutchinson got his third successive victory in this.