R13.38: QCW Roller Race 11/15 - Trackies vs Messengers

This is one race of a four-part goldsprint series.  I was invited down to try roller racing using the goldsprint seonsors.  The track guys weren't allowed to drink until they were done competing, but this wasn't supposed to be an issue and the roller race was supposed to be the first event.  I showed up early, and in typical goldsprint fashion nothing was set up.  Come to think of it, I don't usually write goldsprint reports.  Also come to think of it, I did a goldsprint at 318 cyclery a month or so ago.  I came in second there.

So the deal was the track guys doing roller racing weren't allowed to drink until after they were done racing.  This wasn't supposed to matter, since the roller race was supposed to happen first at 6pm.  Instead, the goldsprint qualifiers happened first, which meant all us track guys were sitting around with our legs getting cold and being stone sober.  This was compounded by the fact that the operators of the goldsprint setup seemed to have no clue what they were doing, with rollers constantly malfunctioning and one setup actually falling apart mid-ride.  By the time 7:30 came around and I still hadn't raced, I got a beer figuring at this point if they had an issue with it, I just wouldn't bother racing.  Most of the track guys figured we wouldn't actually end up racing anyhow.

Eventually, we did get our chance to shine.  I clocked the fastest qualifying time of 20.332 seconds while racing against Andrew B.  After this I raced against Andrew B again.  And then again.  And again.  As much as I love racing against him on the rollers, I was expecting there to be some kind of bracket or round robin style competition.  Half the time the sensors didn't even work and our rounds were nullified.  I was getting really frustrated with this completely half-assed event, which I made well known.

Eventually they said the roller racing portion was over, which none of us understood, as the fastest guys didn't even race against each other, and we all only raced three times, if that.  After doing some digging into the matter, it turns out they decided my qualifying time actually belonged to John Chambers, despite us qualifying in two completely different heats.  Beyond that, I have not a clue what else happened.  We decided among racers who was the fastest and who should get the prizes that were handed out.

After this, I packed up and left, but I can only imagine what kind of fiasco the rest of the night was.

Long story short, what a waste of my time.