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Photos by Greg Descantes

Photos by Mike Lawrence

Symmetrics Takes Early Lead in Burnaby Six Day

The first night of racing is complete at the Burnaby Six Day, and Symmetrics Cycling has taken an early lead over rivals Slipstream Sports, Successful Living, and Healthnet.

Slipstream was plagued by series of mechanicals in the second Madison. First, Friedman rolled a tubular during an exchange and went down hard, leaving Pearce to cover anything that Symmetrics could throw at him. Then Friedman’s seat broke, which required two more trips to the infield and some duct tape to fix. Slipstream did well to only lose one lap to Symmetrics!

The trooper of the night award goes to Brad Huff (LA Lightning) for having to ride 140 of the 160 laps in the second Madison, after his partner, Crosby, went down hard in an exchange only 20 laps into the race, and was not able to return to racing.

	Riders	Team	Laps	Points
1	Tuft / Bell	Symmetrics Cycling	0	67
2	Pearce / Friedman	Slipstream Sports	1	59
3	Meier / O'Reilly	Successful Living	2	43
4	Williams / O'Bee	Healthnet	2	41
5	Campbell / MacDonald	dEVo	6	10
6	Holloway / Silva	US National	7	20
7	Suhr / Luttrell	Cody Racing	8	8
8	McCook / Kilun	Proman Cycling	9	10
9	Mackenzie / Chater	Team Orange (06)	10	15
10	Goodfellow / Norton	Calyon / Martin Swiss	12	5
11	Vives / Vives	Calyon	13	2
12	Crosby / Huff	Los Angeles Lightning	15	14

Flying 200m
The night started off with the flying lap. The LA Lightning duo of Cosby and Huff set an early fast time of 11.31s, which stood until last years champions Tuft and Bell took to the boards. Bell flew through the lap in 11.15s for first place. Top 3 was rounded out by the composite team of Mackenzie and Chater.

Team Elimination
Next up was a full field elimination. All 24 riders took to the track, with the last rider and his partner pulled every 5 laps, until 3 teams remained on the track. The rivalry between the top 4 teams became evident, as the Symmetrics, Slipstream, Successful Living and Healthnet battled to stay at the front and take maximum points in the race. Healthnet was the final team to be eliminated, leaving Bell, Tuft, Friedman, Pearce, Meier, and O’Reilly to set themselves up for the final sprint.  In a fast final sprint, Bell took first place, with Freidman taking second place and O’Reilly taking third place.

100 Lap 5 x 20 Madison
The first Madison of the night was a 100 lap 5 sprint event. Slipstream and Symmetrics took a lap on rivals Successful Living and Healthnet. Slipstream took the first two sprints, with Symmetrics taking the 3rd and 5th sprints.

160 Lap 8 x 20 Madison
The second Madison saw Symmetrics extend their lead over Slipstream, Healthnet, and Successful Living. A series of mechanicals for Slipstream required Pearce to ride almost 50 laps on his own while Friedman changed a rear wheel and then had to repair his saddle using duct tape. Healthnet displayed their sprinting prowess, taking 4 of the 8 sprints during the race, and placing in all of the sprints. Symmetrics was able to take a lap on Healthnet, Slipstream, and Successful Living, putting them in first place overall.

LA Lightning’s Huff was forced to ride 140 laps solo, as his partner, Crosby, crashed hard early on in the race and was not able to return to racing.