Seattle FSA Challenge

After Portland I went to Seattle for another couple days of track racing. Again, the weekend was awesome! The promoters did such a great job of bringing great athletes to compete, tons of fans, and perfect weather. I think there is something to drinking beer and watching track racing that brings in the fans!
The quality and depth in the women's fields for these two weekends was unbelievable. In Portland, there were enough women to split the fields into 3/4's and 1/2's and both races were full! In Seattle, we had record numbers on women enter and in several races had more in the field then the men's field!



Here is the quick rundown of races and results:
I had a huge result in the keirin placing 1st in a super strong field. The picture above is me making the move with one lap to go. I went super early and only won by a half of an inch. After placing 2nd to Monquie (the Canadian superstar) in every sprint event in Portland, it was nice to place 1st. As a reminder... the keirin is the event when the motorcylce paces you and brings everyone to speed and then it is a sprint to the end. Remember the video from Portland?

That same night, I got second in the Points race (an endurance event which I normally don't do great in.) I think I was still on a high from winning the keirin. Christine King (from the US National Team) won the Points race by taking a flyer off the front.
Saturday was the 200m TT and 500m TT in the morning. I was 2nd in the 200 and 3rd in the 500 and happy with both those results. The sprint tourney was ALL DAY on Saturday which was long and painful but I ended up making the finals against Monique. The finals were during the night session and unfortunately right after the women's scratch race. I choose to sit out the scratch race and be fresh for the sprints. I knew this would hurt me in the Omnium but I needed to practice my match sprinting with fresh legs.

As it ended up, I was 2nd in Match Sprints and 3rd in the Omnium after only doing 3 of the 6 omnium events. Another great weekend on two wheels!

Aside from the bike, I had a great time hanging with Heather VanValkenburg, Cristin Walker, Shelby Reynolds, and lots of other girls who ride bikes with no brakes! Thanks girls!

Cari