Slept bad, had an even worse breakfast but when we arrived at Gunma CSC the sky was steel blue and it was warm enough to enjoy the ride – perfect cycling weather. Tom and me were starting in D class and Ludwig has his first start in X class.
I managed to damage the rear derailleur of the bike during transport and was suffering all the race from slipping gears. I went to Nagai-san immediately after the race to fix it – luckily he could.
Tom pulled me through the race but it was to no avail: shortly before the finish of the 8th lap we got overlapped by the D class field and were disqualified. I don’t want to put my bad performance on the damaged derailleur. Or on the lack of warm-up. I was just doing not as well as I thought I could. Poor Tom, he was cheated out of 4 of his planned 12 laps.
But when I went home later and checked the results against the point rankings, my closest competitor also got lapped and the next closest starts now in C class and is out of the D class ranking.
So before the last race I have a lead of 79 point on the number 2 and 90 points on the number 3; there are no other riders in the competition for the first place. With 60 points for attendance and 30 points depending on the finish, I just need to complete the last race to become D class champion. Or I can even skip the race and speculate that #3 will not finish first in the last race (to collect 90 points) and/or that #2 will not finish 5th or better in the last race (to collect 79 points or more). With a best result of 13th place for both of them that seems unlikely.Ludwig did a good job in his first race, he was only lapped in his 7th lap of the x class race, if he would have gone a little faster, he would have been able to finish this 8 lap race. For a start he did a very impressive job.
We were back in Tokyo by 3 PM already. I guess this is the last time I raced in Gunma, next year I will concentrate on the flat races, some favourites (Fuji Hillclimb, Itoigawa Fast Run) and try the bank.
Michael nervously waiting for his rankings print-out…
bikesnob28hb
fixiefanboyhb
sudi1662
there is no "I" in cyclyng 
Don’t say „Poor Tom“…I had a fantastic time! I really enjoyed the gentle ups and downs of the Gunma track. My only regret is that I could not achieve my goal of enticing Michael enough to stick to the peloton and profit from the easy drafting. The carrot I was holding out obviously was not alluring enough. Next time I will be pulling an ice cream cart for you Michael! What’s your favorite flavor anyways?
Preliminary results are out now on the JCRC site:D class : http://www.jcrc-net.jp/kekka08/0809/s0809d1.htmlX class : http://www.jcrc-net.jp/kekka08/0809/s0809x1.htmlAnd just this morning I found out, that the Saiko race will also count in the JCRC championship, so I still need to attend two races, not only one.Our investment bankers headhunting Porsche driving non-violin making foreigner made a good showing in the A class race:http://www.jcrc-net.jp/kekka08/0809/s0809a1.htmlGoro finished in the same race in 48th position, being close to become lapped; something must have happened, I am sure that he can do better than that.I skip the icecream and try to loose some more pounds before the decisive races of the season, I guess.