California wins Madison, Germany Leads at Half Six Day Race

October 12, 2013–By Jen Benepe

Day 2 of the Hollywood Half-Six Day Track Event Features Aggressive Riding

The two riders in Team California, Guy East and Daniel Holloway took the final sprint to the line in the final Madison at today’s Hollywood Championship Cycling event.

Leif Lampater and Christian Grasmann of Team Germany however switched position with Team USA by taking over the overall lead for the event, putting the U.S. riders Bobby Lea and Jackie Simes in second position overall by a one point margin.

Both teams added 4 additional laps to their boards, but Germany eked out 1 extra point over USA, at 54 total versus 53.

Tonight’s Madison, which started out with a 5-lap sprint and led into 45 minutes of racing followed by 10 laps was fast and furious.

It was as if those teams who lost laps to the top 7 teams at the start of today weren’t going to take it lying down. USA was determined not to give an inch, and Germany was looking to take revenge for their narrow loss the day before.

Germany pushed aggressively for additional laps and points, not just in the final Madison, but in the preceding sprints and flying laps where they accumulated points. But it was the final sprint of the Madison that took them over the edge and gave them the 10 points over their 44 at the end of sprint 5, putting them in the lead.

USA wasn’t taking anything lying down either: both Simes and Lea chased down most of the aggression in the field, racking up the most points over the field until the final sprint.

Team California’s two riders Guy East and Daniel Holloway rode aggressively to gain advantage, often working with other teams to get a lap around the field.

In all, five teams were able to gain four laps in today’s Madison, USA, Germany, California, the Euro All Stars with riders Franco Marvulli and Marcel Barth, and Austria/ Denmark’s Andreas Graf and Jesper Morkov.

In the Team Flying Lap Challenge, Team Los Angeles’s Ian Moir flung his partner Zak Kovalcik who flew around the track to beat all of the other teams, for the best time in two days of 13:53 seconds.

The best five teams will compete tomorrow in the final night of racing in the same event.

Perhaps some of the most excitement came from Team Austria/ Denmark who looked more like Red Devils after their performance in the first Madison of the evening when became the running leaders, with USA following.

Tomorrow we can expect a German-American duel dialed up to the extreme, which will make for good viewing.

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