Stepanoff and rookies Adam Palmer and Andrew Hamilton led the early laps separated by just a few minutes. Palmer pulled away or maybe the others faded, but he would lead for most of the race.

I passed through my third lap in 15th place among the solos. Wilson caught up to me and chatted about how he wanted to go out slow. He and I were certainly doing that. I didn't have much choice with only one gear; my first six laps were almost perfectly consistent, varying by less than a minute.

Around midnight I lapped the women's leader, Sue Heywood. Christina Begy had been in 2nd place but had to drop out to take her boyfriend to the hospital after he had a bad crash. He wasn't the only one who had a bad wreck. I saw at least two people with broken collarbones.