TRACK REPORT

Track Leagues - Autumn

Back in the placings, a third in the points race, second in the 1km and a third in the devil for me and, although he scored the same points as the winner, countback meant a second place for Roy in his points race.
A streak of good form saw me take a close second in the devil, followed by two laps in the cdp and then with an attack after 10 laps and some strong riding for the remaining 30 laps in the points race a fine victory for the Chesh.
A win for Roy in a team pursuit, and a win for me in a team sprint.

1 ½ pts for me in cdp and a good second place for Roy and I in the madison.

Roy has suffered a slight drop in form and our only score was a 2nd in the Points race for me.

Roy gained a close third place in the scratch, with a fiver on offer it ended up in a three up sprint with nothing to split them.

No points on the penultimate Monday, though Roy was robbed in the devil and we both paced our juveniles to a placing.

Ignominiously caught in the team pursuit, Roy's team however managed a victory. It was 'devil's night' with a good second place for me, and a very fine and tactically astute win for Roy, which narrowed the gap in the club competition.

Last Monday of the year for the ACT - I managed a third in the 40 lap points, nothing for Roy.

Roy came close in a couple of events but no points scored for either of us.

I scraped home in third place, by dint of last lap placing in the points race.

A good climax to the season. In a closely fought scratch madison, Roy's partner finished just in front of my partner Maurice Broadbent and the John Leach/John Harris pair.
Roy was then straight into a 16 lap scratch race, but tired legs left him out of contention.
This race was followed by my groups team pursuit, and at the end the clock initially showed victory to our team by 9 thousandths of a second, although this was adjusted to nearly 2 tenths of a second, but it was a very close race throughout with victory only being achieved in the final sprint, a hard race that left me with rubber legs. Roy's team also rode to victory in a more one sided affair.
Roy then rode to a fine victory in the devil but his 4 point gain on the night was not enough and leaves me as Track Champion for 2002.

What a close and exciting year it has been for the club championship, never more than 16points in it and that was to Roy during the first sessions. It then ran a couple of points either way for many weeks. A good couple of nights near the end saw me widen a gap to 10.5 points before Roy started rapidly pulling the gap back at the end, so a couple more weeks and it could have gone the other way.

Totals @ 13/12/2002

Roy Aitken 84 ½
Mike Workman 89
Mike Bailey 25 ½