Been a long time since i raced an open, and i remember why you need to try and get a good grading from the Handicapper. Well i was put in with many of the A grade riders from Thursday Nights at DISC in the likes of Turbo, Mr Poole, Peter Ganns, and the list goes on. This wqas ment to be a D Grade field!!

So i raced 1 Scratch race and 1 Handicap. There was another Scratch to come at the end of the night but i will get into why i didn't do that later. So from the gun inthe scartch the heat was on and i was out the back pretty quick. I think i hung in there for about 4 of the 8 laps. They were moving and i just couldn't hold the back of the field. The handicap i was given 240 over the 2000 mtr distance and thought that was pretty fair in these kinda fields . I would like to that Jamie Goddard for the great push as i was in the first 4 riders and held that position for my turn on the front. We were hammering along and again the actual pace of the riders was to much for me to bear. I lasted the first 2 laps of 4 and then i was out the back again, trying to hold on and not get lapped.

The reason i didn't stay for more racing, well there were a few really bad crash's in the junior grades and the racing was running really late. My handicap heat was run at 10 ish pm at night!! They had to cancell a whole set of heats and finals for all the riders which was a shame.

So at about 10:30 pm i  went back to the Caravan park to my wife and kids for a good nights sleep.

It was a great experiance and next year i think i might try and do the full week of them.