Day 2 Rotterdam

Let's start with photos.  Most people are more interested in these anyway.

At the start of one of the races.  Me, Janine from Germany, Kirsten from The Netherlands.

We wear sponsor jerseys.  So, a company pays for a certain rider/jersey.

 The amount of bikes and wheels in the infield is crazy.  And, none of these are women's or U-23.   The infield is about 20% for riders/mechanics (men only) and 80% for entertainment.  The women and U-23 are all in some back hallway. :)

 These are what the stalls for the men look like.  They come here in between races and get massage, food, etc.  This looks dreamy to me!

 The is a FAMOUS (huge star in 6-day racing!) derny driver.  That type of race is something I will have to get video of for anyone to understand. (One of the pictures from yesterday was of 4 of the derny drivers.)  Anyway, this guy is retiring from the derny races tomorrow and they are having a huge celebration for him.  Again, believe it or not, this guy is a rockstar in Holland.  He was making me laugh in this photo!

Racing:
I am starting to get a hang of this track.  It's little and sometimes makes for sketchy racing.

The first race tonight was the Scratch.  Again I went a bit early but I had more gear under me tonight and held off everyone except Kirsten Wild, The Netherlands rider who has won every single race so far.  So, 2nd place.  But, damn, I will win one!

The second race was a flying lap and I totally screwed up my gear selection.  It was silly but I had no one to advise me and I had never done a flying lap on a tiny little track like this.  5th place I think.  Maybe 6th.  12.6 for the 200m flying lap.  I promise I will take at least .3 second off this time the next time I get to do this simply by having a different gear.  Oh, no fancy disc wheel for me!  :)

The last race of the night was the Points race again.  Unfortunately, I wasn't having a good go at it.  Sometimes races just feel like they are flowing and sometimes, like tonight in the points, nothing was flowing for me.  I was just out of sync.  I was 5th in 2 sprints for 0 points.  Worst place to be!  I ended by getting anxious and taking a flier off the front to win the last sprint.  This 5 points put me in 5th place.  Bummer I missed out on those 2 other sprints or else I would have been 2nd place again.  Oh, and, this was the sketchiest race yet!

The beautiful thing about 6-day racing is I can make all these corrections tomorrow!

In the morning I will write about the start list and "who's who" here.  It's pretty impressive!

Good night!