Track Cycling: Velodrome Racing and Training Area - Rear tire selection

For my track bike, I'll be borrowing my road bike's front tubular wheel, currently with a Conti Competition mounted on it. For the rear, track-dedicated wheel, should I also mount a Conti Competition (I already have a couple spares) to maintain symmetry and neutral handling, or mount a more track specific tire? Track time will be fairly evenly split between ADT (wood) and Encino (Concrete)....

I don't think it really matters. I've run Conti Sprinters both front and rear, and the Conti Competitions are pretty similar. The only advantage of track-specific tires is that they are a bit lighter and some can be inflated to higher pressures. Personally, I like a wider rear and narrower front setup for my dedicated race wheels, 23mm rear and 20mm front. I currently use Tufo S33 Special 21mm tires on my training wheels. Anyway, if I were in your position, I'd just use the tires I had. One note about using a front road wheel with a nutted skewer, and that is to use one with a steel nut. I had an aluminum nut strip out on me, fortunately when I was tightening it and not while riding on the track. I replaced it with the steel nut from an old internal cam road quick release. I'm now just using front track wheels with nutted axles.

I don't know that you'll notice a lot of difference having different front and rear tires unless one of them is way more slippy or sticky than the other. I've sometimes ridden with a front Steher and a clincher Vittoria Rubino Pro and unless the track is covered with sawdust it wasn't a problem. I don't know that there's any reason not to use a competition on the rear, though it looks like it has kind of a lot of tread (which will probably smooth out soon enough anyway), though I've never tried them so I'm just guessing from the conti picture. If you're going to race with the front, make sure you get a skewer that lets you tighten it with a hex key-- QR's aren't allowed for racing mass starts.