March 19, 2006 – What a great night of racing at the Forest City Velodrome. Racing began in the afternoon with Time Trials for each Category. Early in the session 2 of our up and coming Seniors went under 5.15 in the 4km event, at our short track this is a major achievement. Personally I can hardly wait for Provincials to see what times can be turned.

In the Evenings Racing a solid crowd of 200 were very enthusiastic and loud as the riders were introduced, during sprint Qualifying 9 riders went under 9 seconds which translates to over 56kph, unfortunately only 4 riders went on to the next round, but this is very encouraging for the Provincial Championships in April.

We have several guests from Quebec and Michigan, all did very well throughout the evenings racing, The Sprint Tournament had all 4 racers very well matched as all 4 were within 2/10’s of a second apart in Qualifying.

Round 1: Adam Thuss (On) v Martin Laforest (Que) in a very thrilling Jump
from the top of the banking Thuss gained the early advantage, only to have
Laforest counter the move and attack over top of Thuss, with a lap to go
the Quebec rider swung up the track thinking the race was over,
unfortunately he had miss judged the finish and Thuss went on to the Gold
Medal Final
Round 2; Lawerence Laroux (Que Jr) v Keith Thorarinson (On), this was a
very tactical race with the lead changing hands several times before the
sprint started, Thorarinson jumped the 17 year old from Quebec, Keith
must of learned from his sprint with Gord Singleton a few weeks ago, as he
did not Lawerence come close to getting around him on the last Lap.

The Sprint Finals was a shot out with Thuss taking the early advantage
however the experience of Thorarinson showed again as he was not going to
give up the lead and was the first to the line in a very competitive series
of races.

In the Points races for each Category saw Eric Robertson & Garnet Abbey
control their respective groups to come out on the winning end after 50
laps of hard fought racing. The Juniors were the most competitive group
as eventual winner Alex Fournier battled back from a 1/2 lap down to earn
enough points to tie Ryan Crawford on points at the end of the race,
however, Fournier was declared the winner by winning the final sprint
against the feisty Crawford.

Complete Results are listed below, accumulated O-Cup points are posted at
www.ForestCityVelodrome.ca

Next racing action at London’s Velodrome is March 31st, The first weekend
of the International 6 Day Bicycle Classic. More information will come
out this week.