Category: 3
Result: 4th

The brave new world of categorised racing was ushered in yesterday to, I thought, general approval, but there do appear to have been grumblings from some quarters. Rather than the largely self-selecting A/B/C groupings, people were ranked according to their USCF track category and not necessarily the one listed on their license either, as there were a number of involuntary upgrades made.

The groups which raced were, P/1/2, E3, E4/5 and women, I was racing E3 along with Scott, a recipient of one of the involuntary upgrades. (I cannot bring myself to state what the "E" stands for, it probably applies to the 1/2 racers, but not that many more.)

First race for us was a 10 lap scratch, and Scott and I worked out a plan for the race. I would string things out from 2.5 laps to go, Scott would choose the wheel to follow and sprint to glorious victory. It didn't work out quite like that. I managed to get the brownie prime at half distance and at 2.5 laps to go, did indeed find a path to the front of the race to string things out. I forced the pace until I was gone at a lap to go launching Scott for the line. Unfortunately, he didn't have the legs in this race.

The next race, a 15 lap lotto race was a different story. Scott launched himself with over a lap to go to take the final points and get 2nd for the race. After the first two races, I was feeling slightly over-geared as the average speed of the E3 group was less than A's of previous weeks and I was finding it difficult to accelerate when required. I therefore changed to 49x15 from 50x15 for the final two events of the evening.

The last E3 race was a de'il tak' the hindmost or miss and out which has in the past been my least favourite event. While rolling round the apron beforehand, I got into conversation with Tom Morris and we decided that we would try something together in the de'il. After the first elimination, we would go off the front leaving the ever diminishing bunch to try to chase us. It didn't quite work like that, as the group was flying at the first elimination, but we did get on the front and for 14 laps, we worked hard, taking turns to pull with a little help from a couple of other riders. I was very relieved to get to the last 3 as we could sit up and try to recover for a while. Tom led out the sprint with over a lap to go, I misjudged things and came round him too early, but was unable to maintain my speed and ended up second to Tom.

The P12 and e fields were combined at the end for a 25 lap points race where I naturally felt a little under-geared, but managed to stay with the main group fairly easily, though I wasn't able to challenge for any points as I was a bit dead after the de'il.

Overall, I ended up 4th for the 3's omnium, giving me another upgrade point towards cat 2. I am now roughly a quarter of the way there.

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