I made it over to the Maebashi Keirin track, a three hour drive by car through mountains and plains. It was really only to visit a bike shop in the good sized town, and didn't expect a race session to be going on during the new years holiday, but upon passing the place I noticed that the parking lot was jammed, so I parked and payed my 100 yen (about a buck) and entered the track lobby. What a gorgeous pista track! It's completely enclosed indoors with a very tall domed roof. The course appears to be about a 400 meter oval circumference, with the track surface exceptionally ultra clean looking and light brown in color, perhaps concrete with some antislip coating on it? The banks are very high, perhaps about twice the height of most amateur tracks that I have seen. The infield is astro turf, and there are large seating capacity folding seat grandstands completely surrounding the track and going up very high. In the carpeted lobby are the many windows where you place your bets, guys hawking something I couldn't quite figure out, colored television monitors showing the race results and odds for the next race, refreshment and souvenir booths, and a crowd of people milling around and squinting over odds sheets and who knows what? Basicly, a real gambling palace where you might bring the kids too. It all looked to be very serious business going on, and I can't say that I saw very many, if any, athletic looking types. In the background is some strange kind of electronic music going on that tingles the skin with expectation. There is notification when the next race is about to start, and most everyone filters out to take a seat in the stands, except for those content to watch the race on the lobby monitors. A few minutes before the race, photos on the big scoreboard introduce the racers wearing suits and ties, along with the odds and possibly their recent race results. The race monitors come out and in military like fashion do a quick check of the track surface and go to their respective race observation posts. The bikes holding mechanism is wheeled into place and the racers come out from under the stands and take their positions at the starting line, all wearing very brightly color matched riding shorts, jerseys and helmet covers. Most races had ten participants. The pacer takes position about forty meters or so in front of the starting line, also on a bike. The outfit that the pacer wears is wicked! It's a deep purple colored shorts ensemble trimmed in black, very hawkish and striking! I noticed that there were both men and women serving as the pacer, and very well developed sprinter's leg muscles revealed these individuals as highly conditioned athletes in their own right. Possibly they are less advanced class riders serving duty, although there are no women riders in the pro ranks since they were ruled ineligible for the sport years ago. The gun goes off and the way the racers start cranking would suggest that very big gears are being used. The riders fall into position directly behind the pacer for about four laps, and at a pace that looked to be a rather "brisk" 40km per hour or so. A guy in the infield clangs the heavy bell, an object in it's stand that appears to have a somewhat religious looking significance about it, and then the pacer pulls off, and the pace really kicks up with jockeying for position going on. The crowd, somewhat subdued until this point, gets into it and starts letting their preferences be known. They come around for the last lap and all hell breaks loose with the riders going full out with speed and positioning and the crowd responding with very vocal approval or contrary to what is transpiring. It is a wild finish down to the line, after which the riders take a few cool down laps while experiencing praise or all manner of insults from some rather vociferous types in the crowd. One guy yelled that Yamazaki made him a fortune last week, but on this day was as exciting as a piece of day old raw fish on a plate going around and around at a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, as well as some more quaint and picturesque expressions more equated with one's ancestry than food, and beyond the scope of this internet discussion group of ladies and gentlemen! It is thrilling to attend these race sessions. The professional riders are obviously highly skilled and in incredible shape, and the color and atmosphere of the place, along with the people, makes for a great time. I doubt that few people in attendance are much interested in the equipment being ridden so expertly there, but the polish and shine of the beautiful bikes, and the quietness with which they haul, much revealing very in-tune machines, made it all the more exciting for me. The finish times and speeds are posted after the race is over. I believe this to be the last half lap speed, and most of the top place finishers were at over 60 kilometers per hour. There were ten races that day, and what a fun experience it was!
Dennis Young
Hotaka, Japan