Burnaby Velodrome Challenge Race Report

Burnaby Velodrome Challenge Nov 9-11 2007:
"Hold on to your hat's boys, this is gonna be a wild ride!!"

That's what they should have said. Cause it was fast and furious all weekend. And I mean all weekend. The weekend began on Fri for an evening session, with three races each. Then Sat morning session was sprints and C racers each riding three races. Saturday afternoon offered a Madison Cup (for the B's we did multiple Points races and Elimination), and Women's races. Saturday evening we had another three races each. Sunday morning again gave us three opportunities to race our brains out! Whew, and Ahhh…great racing, great prep for the upcoming World Cup races!!

The racing drew a strong field in all categories (A, B, C, New Racer, Women, and New Women Racer).
In the A's, among others, there was Kirk Obee, Kenny Williams, Dan Harm, Cody Cambell, Jeff Ain, Mike McCorkell. The As field had a total of 21 riders, not bad for a mid-November race, with a UCI track limit on a 200 of 20!! They raced 3 Points races, Scratch race, Snowball, Tempo, Unknown Distance, Miss N Out, 200, 3 Madison, Kerin, and Sprints.

In the B's, we had Steff Roorda (Current Canadian National Point Champ), Iona Lavern Winter Parks (racing for Jamaica for the Sydney and Beijing), Mandy Poitras (also going to Sydney an Beijing for the Canadian national team), Tara Whitten (who also is going to Sydney and Beijing for the Canadian National team, focusing on the Pursuit), and Jason Manning (made us hurt all weekend, damn junior rode AWESOME, got second in Omnium even though he crashed and missed all races on Sunday). We had 25 riders in our field. Our races included 3 Points races, 2 Scratch race, Snowball, Tempo, Unknown Distance, 2 Miss N Out, 200, Kerin, and Sprints.


The Cs shined with the likes of Jenelle Cassely (good friend, 2x top 20 World Downhill Championships, and BMX punk extrordonaire, and designer of the Burnaby Velodrome Club November Challenge Championship Jerseys, provided by ATAC.), Curtis Jung, and Mike Sidick also were in attendance. They had 20 riders in their field! Their races included 2 Scratch races, Points race, Miss N Out, Unknown Distance, Tempo, and 200.

The Women only field drew Jennifer Tripplett and Annette Hansen from Seattle. As well as many other women from the B, and Cs field. We had 13 women in our field. We had a Scratch, Miss N Out, and Points race.

THEN, there was a New Racer category with 17 riders, they had Points, Scratch, Snowball, Miss N Out, and 200. And a New Women Racer category with 8 women, they had a Points race and a Snowball.
That's 104 riders! WOW!! That's awesome! And the racing was superb!! Just what I needed to sharpen up my skills for Sydney!