Masters track champs at Redmond Washington on a 400 meter cement track. Sounds intimidating but it really isn’t. The track is located in Marymoor Park, a multi activity area along side a big lake. Concerts, rock climbing, radio controlled air field among other things. The flight here was uneventful except for the nasty extra baggage fees. $125 for 3 bags, then another $50 x 2 for tow bags that were 4 pounds over the max of 50 pounds. $225 extra, I need to pack better coming home. Plus, I think it’s back to the mega box for traveling. It’s huge and looks weird going through airports but it holds everything and is easy to pull along with other bags laying on top so easy to manage by one person.
The track itself reminds me of the NSC facility, nice enough but not very fancy, bare bones track racing. The people running it are friendly and helpful. I flew in last Saturday, drove to the track from the airport to check it out and find when I could get on. Did some warm up efforts on Sunday for about an hour, then relaxed the rest of the day and tried to find my way around the area. Monday was a bit of tourist time. A drive to downtown Seattle and a short walk around the aquarium area on the sound then a drive to Snoqualamie Falls, back to the hotel and then back to the track for a riders meeting. In between was trips to Home Depot and another local hardware store to buy fold up chairs, tents, mats and gear to set up our track side home. Hopefully we can sell all this stuff before we leave! The infield is huge but the “grass” is really rough and uneven, no shade anywhere.
There is more banking then you would think although you can ride it VERY SLOW. It reminds me of T Town or CO Springs with straights that are just 35 meters longer.
Charlie Anderson, Dan Casper and I are here from MN. Today, Tuesday Dan and I raced. Dan laid down another great time and started the week with a Gold in the 45 to 49 3K IP. I worked hard to break my goal time of under 40 seconds, missing by .777. (40.77 for 9th of 12 riders) Fastest time for my 500 was 38.905 and slowest was 41.850, quite a close grouping for the 12 of us.
Charlie races tomorrow morning and I race a Points race tomorrow night with plans to more up in the ranks.