chas58

Now, that is a fun race, a bit different than motorpacing. It the first half of the race, they are just dropping like flies. It is impressive how big the field starts out and then how few are left for the final spring.


Anyone else do this type of race?

From Road.cc:
Video: Is this the best track race format ever? Sit back and watch, and suppress your giggles ... | road.cc
Marymoor Crawl a perennial crowd-pleaser at US track meet - we'd love to see it in the Olympics ...

queerpunk

Heh. I was at the Marymoor GP - didn't race the crawl, though my sweetheart was the last woman standing. The day before, my madison partner got 2nd. Cool to see that video get a bunch of attention this week!

At my local track, the last night of the season is a bit of a novelty night - people wear retro jerseys and there are some silly/novelty race formats thrown in. This year it included a crawl-type race - trackstand to a one-lap sprint, except it was run clockwise.

Sprinting clockwise around the track was a trip.

An unpleasant trip.

Hida Yanra

Yeah- I've done the crawl, it's a fun change-up.
Having $$ handup primes along the edges helps quite a bit,
We love it around here, the showmanship is a big part of it, and the racers get that it is in "how" you do it. Jamie Carney is truly the king of this race, Dan Hollywood knows how to win it in style.

It has created some match ups that many of us wanted to see, where fast sprinters (top regional level guys) are doing a 400m chariot against the truly fast enduros (Zach K/Adrian Hegevary/Jamie Carney/Hollywood). Of interest, the enduros usually win it- I thought that Brian Abers had a good shot this year, but he went out just a few seconds too soon.

yeah- it is a good time.

chas58

That would be pretty odd. A well designed track is actually banked differently entering and exiting the turn, so going backwards at speed would be quite a trip...

chas58

I liked that part of handing out the cash. reminded me a bit of Shamu taking a fish as Sea World. ;-)

Hida Yanra

it keeps the interest up as otherwise there's little incentive for racers to move toward the line until the 90".
Also, it gets a larger raft of people starting, which makes the spectacle