The report from Indiana

Background: Darin's back in Indiana at his old stomping grounds. Apparently the registration for a hugely poplular night time fun ride is held at the velodrome at the same time during the track racing.

I met up with Don Walker, at the track, last night. He took your wheels to give to Brooke, because she was racing somewhere else yesterday. He seemed like a pretty nice guy. He also took a bunch fliers and your business cards. He wanted to know if you sent any swag, I told him no, but I said you might be able to help him out sometime later.



I ended up placing second in the kerin (with a real motor and qualifying), first in the miss-n-out (pulled the old neutral lap attack), and got third in the points race (won the last sprint). Thousands of people were there watching, most were bike geeks who didn't know the first thing about racing, and they thought I had won the points race by winning the final sprint. It's pretty cool when there is a line of people around the track and they start banging on the boards and cheering. I jumped from the chase group to the break, in the Pt's race,and the crowd was yelling and when I made contact they started cheering, banging, yelling (good stuff).

The best part of the racing was that I was racing against a bunch of kids half my age. I beat one of them in the final sprint and he asked me how old I was, I told him 43, and he made some comment about hoping he could go that fast when he's that age. (I turned my head, spit, and thought, "hell kid you can't go that fast now. What makes you think you'll get faster as you get older?")



Jordan didn't have any Jr racing to do, but they let him sit on the back of the women field. He also got to do a 500 exhibition, and got the crowd cheering and banging on the boards during his lap and a half. He rode a 47 flat. He did go 1 second faster than the last time, but he did swim all day before we went. He could have gone better if he were more rested.



I had Bill racing in our kit, and racing on Gens deep rims. Jordan rode a a set of the clincher carbons, and I did my normal set up. I had all of the wheels on display and I tried to get the announcer to mention CC as much as I could.

All in all it was a pretty fun night and I got to see a lot of people I haven't seen or raced with in a long time. I also won $150! Racing seems a lot harder when there is cash on the line. L8R.