Originally Posted by Brian Ratliff

I would say that sometimes sprinters can do well in scratch races, but scratch races as a whole do not resemble sprints. One of the most amazing local scratch races I've watched was the elite men's 10 mile during the Alpenrose Velodrome Challenge a couple years ago. The announcers were offering a dollar or two or five (I forget the exact amount) for the first person across the line every lap. The average speed of that race was over 30mph. A couple of the sprinters who entered put on a huge gear, went off the front for the first 10 or 15 laps (enough to buy lunch) and then dropped out.

The Keirin is definitely a sprint race.