For the past few months I have been counting down the days for the start of the track season at Blackburn and also the Trek SSS that Carl has been busy planning.

On Saturday I rode 100km's with my mate Steve, it was supposed to be an easy ride, but the wind made the conditions really tough. On Sunday morning the legs were a little sore, but not too bad. I arrived at BBN around 10.30am to help Carl and the gang set up for the Trek SSS.  Because Nathan, Dino and myself were competing as well as helping out with timing and registrations etc, we agreed to do our flying 200's before everyone else so we would be organized. I decided to go first and without much of a warm-up and probably did my worst flying 200 ever.

The first match sprint was alot of fun, I had no real plan and didn't really know what I was doing, but remembered some things from Carl's Saturday morning race skills sessions. With about 200m to go I was nicely positioned behind my opponent and then decided to go for it. I probably went way too early, but it was nice to have a win first up.

The second sprint I was a little nervous, as I had seen Dino narrowly beat Leah my next opponent only meters from the line. She was  talking to me earlier and it sounded like she was pretty experienced rider. I thought my only real chance here was to maybe surprise her and attack early. Attack early I did, with about 300m to go I took off and I think I was able to get a 10m gap. With around 50m to go I could hear her at my back wheel and somehow found something and beat her just before the line. I was pretty happy with this result because I tried something different and it worked.

The third sprint was against Dino, we both knew this was sort of a dead rubber as both of us had enough points and would be racing each other again in the final. I still wanted to win and hopefully have a psychological advantage over him when we met again in the final. I was happy that he decided to lead as I was more than happy to just sit behind him. When he attacked he sort of caught me off guard and it took alot of effort to get back on his wheel. I was fortunate that my legs were starting to feel good and I was able to pass him just before the line.

In the final I won the toss and decided to let Dino lead, my thinking was that I didn't want to change anything from the previous race and I wanted to know exactly what was happening in front of me. Basically on the last lap Dino attacked and gapped me nicely, I tried to get back on, but I couldn't get close and I could feel that my legs were gone. Dino won pretty comfortably, in hindsight if I could race this again, I would taken the lead position and tried to race it on my terms. Anyway its all part of learning and each of the 4 races, were different and I am hoping next time it will make me a better rider.

Although the numbers were disappointing, it was a fantastic day, each of the races were raced in good spirits with a few jokes and a few laughs. I think Carl was disappointed with the turnout, but it gave us all a chance to fine tune some things and we will be better and stronger when the numbers get bigger. Every rider was full of praise on how well the event was run and were impressed that all races started on time. The overall winner of "A" grade, Eddie Wilson gave a great speech and told us how much he enjoyed it and more riders will definitely come.

Thanks again to Carl for idea and to BBN for making this happen, I am sure that this is going to get bigger and bigger.

See you on the track!

Rob.