Phew, the proverbial rubber dust has settled, and our first track race is in the books. Thanks to everyone who came out to race for helping to make a successful day of racing and spectating. If you weren't there, here are some highlights of the day to showcase some of the excitement that is ECCC track racing.
After a thunderstorm blew through our MTB race on Saturday, I was very glad to see temps in the 70s, and low humidity for our track race on Sunday.
Kicking things off in high gear with the 200m TTs, Mark Wagner of Pink Rhino Racing set the fastest time of the day of 12.20 seconds, that's averaging 36.9 mph on a flat track! Steve Rusnak of Army took the fastest collegiate time at barely a tenth of a second behind in the Men's A/B race. In a theme that would continue for the day, the collegiate Women and C/D Men saw a very tight battle, Kenneth Dailey (Army) beat Alex Borsuk (PSU) by only 7 hundredths of a second, while the stop watches showed only 0:00.02 difference between Gabby and Victoria (West Point)!
In the Men's C/D 500m TT, Kenneth and Alex switched top spots, with Alex taking the win by less then a second. Steve Rusnak showed he wasn't only fastest over 200m, but also won the Men's A/B Kilo by a solid gap of over 8 seconds.
The 2k individual pursuit showed just how closely matched the collegiate women were racing. Here is a chart showing the relative advantage in seconds of Jasmine over Gabriella, finally putting an end to Gabriella's winning streak.
After a very even start, Gabby inched ahead to a maximum lead of almost 1.5 seconds, but in the final laps Jasmine poured it on to take the win by less then 1 second over the 3 minute race.
In the Men's C/D, it was Alex Borsuk (PSU) again, edging out Brandon Knettel (Lehigh) by less then 2 seconds in their 2k pursuit. This result was good enough to move Brandon into 3rd over all in the omnium, just one point behind Kenneth Dailey who was consistently finishing near the top.
In the Men's C/D 4k Scratch race, Brandon found enough motivation throw down an early attack, and hold off a hard charging Alex Borsuk (PSU) to take the win, and move into second in the overall omnium, but Alex still held a significant lead of 5 points, after 3 events.
With Army fielding the majority of the riders in the Women's scratch race, Antonina Esposto (Marywood University) was forced to chase down the alternating Army attackers, doing a bunch of chase work, and just plain getting outnumbered by the team tactics of Army.
Sarah Haight took the Scratch race win, bumping her up into 3rd in the omnium. While Gabby scored 3 more points to increase her lead in the Women's omnium, the Men's A/B race was just getting tighter. After winning the scratch race, Mike Houghton (Army) took enough points to tie Steve Rusnak for the lead, with Micah not far behind.
With such a close race for the Men's A/B omnium, it came down to a tense and tactical race in the Match Sprints. Mike Houghton won each of his heats, all the way to meet Steve Rusnak in the finals. Each were tied for first in the omnium, so this win would determine not only the Match sprints, but the overall collegiate win. Crawling at a snail's pace (I swear they went backwards for a while) until late in the last lap, Mike got a strong enough acceleration to take the win by several bike lengths over his teammate.
In the Women's match sprints, Jennifer Webster took her first win of the day, facing off against her teammate Sarah in the finals. While the margins got tighter, neither had quite enough points to take the omnium win from Gabriella Allong.
Results and TT times (with splits) posted on the website.
After a thunderstorm blew through our MTB race on Saturday, I was very glad to see temps in the 70s, and low humidity for our track race on Sunday.
Kicking things off in high gear with the 200m TTs, Mark Wagner of Pink Rhino Racing set the fastest time of the day of 12.20 seconds, that's averaging 36.9 mph on a flat track! Steve Rusnak of Army took the fastest collegiate time at barely a tenth of a second behind in the Men's A/B race. In a theme that would continue for the day, the collegiate Women and C/D Men saw a very tight battle, Kenneth Dailey (Army) beat Alex Borsuk (PSU) by only 7 hundredths of a second, while the stop watches showed only 0:00.02 difference between Gabby and Victoria (West Point)!
In the Men's C/D 500m TT, Kenneth and Alex switched top spots, with Alex taking the win by less then a second. Steve Rusnak showed he wasn't only fastest over 200m, but also won the Men's A/B Kilo by a solid gap of over 8 seconds.
The 2k individual pursuit showed just how closely matched the collegiate women were racing. Here is a chart showing the relative advantage in seconds of Jasmine over Gabriella, finally putting an end to Gabriella's winning streak.
After a very even start, Gabby inched ahead to a maximum lead of almost 1.5 seconds, but in the final laps Jasmine poured it on to take the win by less then 1 second over the 3 minute race.
In the Men's C/D, it was Alex Borsuk (PSU) again, edging out Brandon Knettel (Lehigh) by less then 2 seconds in their 2k pursuit. This result was good enough to move Brandon into 3rd over all in the omnium, just one point behind Kenneth Dailey who was consistently finishing near the top.
In the Men's C/D 4k Scratch race, Brandon found enough motivation throw down an early attack, and hold off a hard charging Alex Borsuk (PSU) to take the win, and move into second in the overall omnium, but Alex still held a significant lead of 5 points, after 3 events.
With Army fielding the majority of the riders in the Women's scratch race, Antonina Esposto (Marywood University) was forced to chase down the alternating Army attackers, doing a bunch of chase work, and just plain getting outnumbered by the team tactics of Army.
Sarah Haight took the Scratch race win, bumping her up into 3rd in the omnium. While Gabby scored 3 more points to increase her lead in the Women's omnium, the Men's A/B race was just getting tighter. After winning the scratch race, Mike Houghton (Army) took enough points to tie Steve Rusnak for the lead, with Micah not far behind.
With such a close race for the Men's A/B omnium, it came down to a tense and tactical race in the Match Sprints. Mike Houghton won each of his heats, all the way to meet Steve Rusnak in the finals. Each were tied for first in the omnium, so this win would determine not only the Match sprints, but the overall collegiate win. Crawling at a snail's pace (I swear they went backwards for a while) until late in the last lap, Mike got a strong enough acceleration to take the win by several bike lengths over his teammate.
In the Women's match sprints, Jennifer Webster took her first win of the day, facing off against her teammate Sarah in the finals. While the margins got tighter, neither had quite enough points to take the omnium win from Gabriella Allong.
Results and TT times (with splits) posted on the website.
