Official z6s Daagse Vlaanderen Gent website || Nightly Event Results Pages

Intro :: Day 2 :: Day 4 :: Day 5 :: Day 6 :: Inside the Gent Six :: U23 American riders East and Carroll Interview

THURSDAYS RACING - Day 3

by Steve Penny
Ghent, Belgium
20th November 2008

Thursday’s at the Ghent Six have, in recent years, become one of the busiest nights of the whole event with a large number of students swelling the usually crammed centre of the track (the middenplien) to bursting point. Tonight is no exception and all tickets are sold out. Normally a Ghent crowd is strictly a cycling crowd but tonight it is a bit different perhaps closer to a German Six Day crowd who come to party as well as watch racing. However the boisterous, but generally well behaved, crowd are always intent on enjoying the heady mix of fast and furious racing and more than a bit of their preferred liquid refreshment, Belgian beer.

As always at a Six Day the evenings racing kicks off with a leg warming points race, here it is over 60 laps of the 166 metre track with each rider taking 30 laps each. This one goes to Kenny De Ketele and Andreas Beikirch who take a morale boosting win and 10 points that give them a bonus lap and the lead at the top of the standings.

The next race, a team Elimination (or Devil Takes the Hindmost in the UK), with 20 points on offer had the main players focused. Risi / Aeschbach surprisingly went out midway through followed by Stam / Schep, that lack of a strong sprint again telling. The Danes Jorgensen / Madsen hung in bravely but ultimately couldn’t live with the top 3 teams all of whom went hard. Surprisingly Zabel had to sit up and left a Belgian showdown between Keisse and De Ketele. Keisse confirmed he is the quickest guy on this home track taking the win with his now trade mark ‘bunny hop’ across the finish line.

The flying lap Time Trial (TT) is a crowd favourite but tends to follow a pattern during a Six and roared on by the crowd Keisse has been the fastest so far. He is again clocking 8.83 (67.950 km/h), although there was also a very credible time from Tim Mertens of 8.97 (66.889 km/h). Keisse and Bartko are well on their way to 200 points and another bonus lap.

The evenings first 40 minutes + 10 lap Madison was, as ever, fast and furious stuff. Risi / Aeschbach seem to have come into form and pushed the field all the way arriving at the finish on the same lap as Keisse / Bartko. Risi then showed that when he needs it he can pull out a sprint and beat Keisse to the line taking the bouquet from Ghent Six Day legend Etienne De Wilde. The Belgo / German combination had the consolation of regaining the race lead and are still the team to beat.

The evening’s first Derny race saw a popular win for fast improving 22 year old Belgian Tim Mertens. The individual Elimination race was a much needed win for Ghent local Dimitri De Fauw who seems to have lost his speed in the flying laps and is not competing in the Madison either, so any win is a good win for him this week. The 2nd Derny race saw a grandstand finish with Erik Zabel, paced by Joop Ziljaard, nipping ahead of Iljo Keisse, who was behind his national track coach and former Track World Champion Michel Vaarten, on the line. The 500 metre TT saw Keisse / Bartko blitz most of the field by well over a second clocking 27.87 (64.586 km/h) to get another 20 point haul and gain the bonus lap for reaching 200 points. They were followed by Hester / Roberts in 28.47 (63.224) from Jorgensen / Madsen 28.60 and Mertens / Muller 28.74 the only other team within one second.

The 2nd Madison of the night is understandably a little less frenetic than the first and the crowd seemed more interested in singing and swaying along to Euro and retro pop songs. That said the racing speed was still high and concentration must always be 100% during Madison races. Zabel / Lampater had slipped to 2 laps behind Keisse / Bartko but entered the last 10 laps of this Madison with Stam / Schep a lap ahead of the field. The Dutch pair are not great sprinters and try and break with 5 to go but are reeled in and Lampater rather than Zabel takes the sprint finish to put them back within a lap of the leaders.

With the time approaching 1 a.m. and tiredness understandably setting in the remaining races are a bit more low key. The ‘Supersprint’ (a mini-team elimination race with 6 eliminations followed by a 6 team sprints) goes too Dutchmen Pim Ligthart, at 20 the youngest rider in the race, and 36 year old former Tour De France stage winner Leon Van Bon from Mertens / Muller and the Italians Ciccone / Masotti who are as predicted are struggling in 11th place and need a win. Next was a straight forward Scratch race over 20 laps taken by Tim Mertens confirming his potential, he represented Belgium in the Scratch at the World Championship and recent World Cup meeting in Manchester.

The 3rd round of Derny races is between riders from the top 6 in the overall standings and saw the ever competitive Joop Ziljaard pace Bruno Risi to the win from De Ketele and Bartko. The last Elimination race of the night had the top guys hanging at the back of the field, with a view to getting off early to their Hotels, allowing the lower ranked riders to contest the victory. This one goes to Nicky Cocquyt from Steve De Neef in the traditional two up sprint. Even with the crowd thinning out it will have been a morale booster for Cocquyt, who also took the nights closing Keirin, whose partner Ingmar Depoortere has struggled again.

The standings after day 3 are:
Keisse / Bartko		215 Points
+ 1 lap
Zabel / Lampater		172
De Ketele / Beikirch	156 
Risi / Aeschbach		118
+ 3 laps
Stam / Schep		91
+ 4 laps
Roberts / Hester		112
+ 5 laps
Mertens / Muller		136
+ 7 laps
Jorgensen / Madsen		135
+ 11 laps
Van Bon / Ligthart		129
+ 13 laps
De Fauw / De Neef		96
Ciccone / Masotti		65
+ 31 laps
Cocquyt / Depoortere	75