A feast for sprinters and enduros is coming in the summer of '08-'09 at Blackburn.
We have our regular Saturday racing, every Saturday afternoon from 2pm (entries and track available from 1pm)
New this summer is the once a month Blackburn Keirin series running on Saturdays with a $1000 cash prize pool and the monthly Bontrager Summer Sprint Series for match sprinting on Sundays (prize pool to the value of ~$2,500)
The Australia Day madison on the 24th of January will again feature not only elite male madison racing, but also a women’s madison.
Blackburn’s track racing grades from A to F grade, with grades suitable for world champions through to novices and J13 juniors.
For details of the regular Saturday racing see the Blackburn website :
And the Bontrager Summer Sprint Series for match sprinting on Sundays :
Ja, Eddie, I’m sorry … they’re dragging their heels a bit on the final program. It’ll be once a month on Saturdays as part of the regular track races, most likey each keirin round will be a fortnight away from the summer sprint series rounds on Sunday.
The first of the regular Blackburn SoT season is this coming Saturday. The races :
Scratch Race, Progressive Points, Motor Pace
A progressive points race is a points race with a sprint every lap (at BBN, this is every 307m)
Each lap except lap 1 there’s points for winning the sprint (but no 2nd, 3rd etc) in increasing order, so lap 2 win : 1 point, lap 3 win, 2 points … lap 10 win - 9 points and so on for the number of laps in the race.
Ie: to get any points at all you have to actually win a sprint, and the rider with the most points wins at the end. The last couple of sprints are the most important, but it’s not unheard of for a rider winning 1 sprint (the first one, getting 1 point only!) to place overall in this race format, if one or two other riders are very strong and mop up all the other points.
The scratch race is just like a crit - first 3 to finish are the placegetters
The motorpace is similar, except riders roll turns behind the motorbike at a controlled but gradually increasing speed until 2.5 laps to go, when the motorbike pulls off the front and then it’s ‘sprint for the line time’.
This Saturday is round 3 of the Keirin series at Blackburn, as well as scratch & points races. I’ll be away and will miss it (we’re goin’ tah Bonnie Doon!) so there may not be commentary and music, but there will be hot racing!