Stage 7 Complete Live Report

February 24, 2007 - Manchester, England - For the fourth round of the track World Cup circuit, Team Slipstream’s Brad Huff and Michael Creed were in Great Britain racing for the US National Team (Huff) and Team Slipstream (Creed). During Friday’s schedule of events both riders raced the Scratch race, with Huff winning his first-ever World Cup medal in 3rd place, and Creed finishing 12th. On Saturday, Creed put in a fine ride in the Points race ending up in 8th place.

Here’s the Scratch race report according to Huff:

“Track racing for those of you that do not know, is the Nascar of bicycle racing. But we don’t have gears or brakes, so it becomes quite interesting at high speed. Still considering myself a rookie in the International Track scene, each event is a new adventure. Manchester World Cup was my 4th ever world cup, but only my second scratch race at this level.

The race was fast and furious from the beginning with Mike Creed getting in to an early move that lapped the field, shortly after that I also lapped the field in a small group, then both of us held on as the speed never truly dropped. Attacks kept firing off the front as Mike and I attempted to represent USA/Slipstream. In track racing everything happens about 3x faster than road racing, so the slightest hesitation can mean several laps of suffering to make up for the loss.

As I attempted to get in to better position for the final sprint, which happens way sooner than any road race sprint. Mike found himself totally boxed in, unable to move up and contest the sprint. As I found myself in a good position the pack surged over the top with just 3 laps to go, now I was nearly boxed in similar to Mike.

Thankfully I had just enough to surge back over the swarm and nip the one rider I remembered had lapped the field with me. Although so many others had lapped the field that I was unsure if my finish sprint had placed me on to the podium or farther down in the classification. Luckily enough my final surge was just enough to secure my first ever World Cup medal. Bronze!”