Track riding is the best introduction to bike racing: short, (relatively) safe, and easy to understand. I had a hard time with the whole ‘fixed gear’ at first. During my first race, I tried to stop pedaling – the pedals kept moving (which scared the sh*t out of me) which bucked my right knee up and forward, into my handlebars. My back wheel jumped and all of a sudden, I found myself out of the saddle. I was hunched over the bars with my nose headed towards my front wheel. My right foot was unclipped – which is probably what saved me from crashing – and now I was flying down the banking with one foot clipped in and the other dangling in mid-air.
I had no idea what I was doing.
That was my first rack race. I won, by the way. I’m not trying to brag, but when a Cat 2 on the road shows up to a Cat 4/5 track race, there’s really only one thing that can happen: the Cat 2 wins. After my near-catastrophe, I clipped back in, took a deep breath, and returned to the back of the pack. With one lap to go I opened up my sprint coming out of Turn 2, and nobody even came close. (This is back when I was a 155-pound field sprinter…) I was 1st, 2nd, and 1st, in the first three races I entered. Here’s a clip from race #2, a Cat 4/5 scratch race: Click for video
By the end of the summer, I was racing against Dan Holloway (one of the best track riders in the country) in the Main Event, a 20-30k Scratch or Points Race open to Cat 1/2/3 riders. I never beat Holloway – he usually lapped the field by himself, multiple times – but I learned a lot, and I had fun.
Bob Pfarr Memorial Classic 2014
Thinking back, I thought I did better. Top 5, I thought; 4th, maybe? – Nope, I got 8th. Tis the inaccuracy of the human memory.
Here are the results:
| 1 | Donaghue | Liam | Donahuge | Boulder, CO |
| 2 | Hartley | Chad | Octane | Fox Point |
| 3 | Springer | Robert | Wheel and Sprocket | Sturtevant |
| 4 | Kaker | Brian | LAPT | Milwaukee |
| 5 | Slavens | Zachary | Spoke STL | St. Louis, MO |
| 6 | Dinerstein | Alec | XXX | Evanston, IL |
| 7 | Neurohr | Avi | Chicago Cuttin’ Crew | Chicago, Il |
| 8 | Nehr | Zack | IS Corp | Whitefish Bay |
| 9 | Milas | Kaz | Kenosha Velosport | Kenosha |
| 10 | Whalen | Aaron | Kenosha Velosport | Kenosha |
(By the way, I’m not bitter about them spelling my name wrong; but I am bitter about them pronouncing my last name, “Nayyerrrr!”)
I remember being lapped by Liam, Chad, and Robert many, many, many times. Those three were on another level, especially Liam, who was ranked the #1 endurance track rider in the US in 2014, and would go on to compete in the UCI Track World Championships later that year. (In fact, the USA Cycling announced their Track Worlds team two days before the Bob Pfarr Classic – why Liam was in Kenosha, Wisconsin on August 5th looking for a track race, I may never know).
Besides getting lapped many times, and royally suffering, I remember that this race was lllllloooooonnnnnnggggggg. 150 laps (50 km), and over an hour of pain, suffering, speed, and not being able to stop. Remember, track bikes have no brakes; they have a fixed gear, which also means that for over an hour, you cannot stop pedaling. I remember not being able to feel my… ‘undercarriage’…for most of the race, and for far too long after.
The Bob Pfarr Memorial Classic 2018
I lapped the field seven times. The only problem was, so did two other guys; and they could sprint better than me, too. But before we get to the race, let me back up for a second.
Track racing at the Washington Park Velodrome starts at 7PM. So my dad and I pulled into the parking lot at 5:15PM, plenty of time for this roadie to get in a nice, long warm-up. I rode around the track at an easy pace, since we didn’t start racing for over an hour. In the meantime, I caught up with some guys who had just gotten back from Elite Track Nationals. They had placed very well, and they were my main competition. Between their recent results and my lack of sprinting ability (I weigh 140 pounds; they all probably had 20+ pounds of muscle over me), I was nervous.
During track races, I have one tactic: counter every attack. Since the Bob Pfarr Classic is a points race, there were sprint points available every 10 laps (to the first four riders across the line; 5, 3, 2, and 1 points, respectively); perfect time to counter-attack.
After the first sprint, I took off. Again. And again. And again… I attacked probably 25 times in an hour. But every time, four guys were able to come with me. Sometimes I would get a little gap, sometimes not. But eventually, following every one of my attacks, those same four riders would catch up to me – the cream rising to the top.
For the first couple of sprints, I tried to sit in, come around them at the last second, and steal some points – it didn’t work. Before every sprint, I would be sitting in the draft with 200 meters to go. The rider in front of me would accelerate, and I would do the same. 5 seconds later and I was at my max speed; they were not. They would fight each other to the line, and then I would come sweeping by in Turn 1, counter-attacking because that’s all my legs could do.
I soon thought of another strategy: attack 1.5 laps before the sprint, try to catch them off-guard. Well, either my attacks sucked, or those four riders respected the hell out of me, because they never let me go. Not even for one, measly sprint. But I kept trying.
Coming into the last 30 laps, I knew it was going to be close. I was stuck in 5th place, but the gap between 3rd and 5th was less than 10 points – riders earn 20 points for gaining a lap (i.e. lapping the field) in a points race. So if I could go a lap up on 3rd and 4th, I would jump onto the podium.
It was a last-ditch effort. I was on the rivet. I had been for 130 laps, but so was everyone else. At 20 laps to go we contested the second-to-last sprint, and as always, I came up short. But this time I went all-in. My legs were burning, my throat was scorched, and I had sweat pouring down from my forehead and into my eyeballs; but I didn’t care. At 19.5 laps to go I attacked as hard as I could, and this time, I had a gap.
At 19 laps to go, they were starting to come back to my wheel. Great, just like every other time. But wait, there’s only two of them. What happened to the others? My dad is yelling at me from the infield, “Go, go, go!!” It had taken 131 laps, almost an hour of tortuous suffering, but I had finally broken them, 3rd and 4th place.
I drove the break – now down to 3 – for the last 18 laps. I didn’t care about sprint points; all I cared about was getting a lap. At 5 to go, I made the junction with the field – 3rd place was secured.
***
Thank you to the spectators, the fans, the officials, the parents, and the racers for making the 2018 Bob Pfarr Memorial Classic a night I will never forget.
Next up: 3 weekends of road racing to finish off the 2018 season.
First: River Gorge Omnium, Chattanooga, Tennessee