Photos + words : Charlie Sears
alphamail@theawarewolfs.com / www.charliesears.co / @thisischarliesears
New York City, March 5th 2016.
The 17th Monster Track. The alley cat of alley cats.
An event which Wikipedia claims to be the 2nd largest alley cat in the nation.
I didn’t race. I didn’t even go the finish. I just went to the meetup to see how the organization went, and cheer on friends.
It was in the low 40°F’s when Monster Track met at Ace Bar in NYC’s East Village.
Registration was scheduled to be from 1pm – 3pm but Victor, the main organizer was incredibly late and registration didn’t even START until about 3:20ish. (The race was supposed to start at 3:30.)
The organizers announced that registration would now be at Tompkins Square Park a couple blocks away. So, the mob of 300+ racers and spectators rolled there.
After hanging around Tompkins Park for about awhile, the organizers sent us over to a different location for registration…
After going to this place for registration, they sent us back to Tompkins Square Park to wrap up registration and finally yell GO! 
A lot of us wanted to go ride to stay warm but with the way things were going, we didn’t know if we could/should leave. We may have missed the start to the race.
Riding around the city photo ops were missed but whatever.
Cause Monster Track.
Finally, a little after 5pm, everyone was registered (200+ racers) and it was time to yell GO.
Racers laid their bikes down on one side of the park and had to run to their bikes.
Then everyone went to this space to get the first manifest.
Yes. The FIRST manifest.
I heard the race went something like this; “everyone who registered gets this manifest. But, only 75 got the next one, and like, 25 got the final manifest.” So this wasn’t a little 5 mile ‘community cat’- this was multiple checkpoints, multiple manifests, all over New York City.
Photo Credit : Jules Abraham
Photo Credit : Unknown
All the racers risked life and limb but the 2016 MONSTER TRACK PODIUM is :
1st : Chris Tian
2nd : Chaz
3rd : Nico
Even though Monster Track 2016 was hours behind schedule, the race/energy was a blast to witness. Thanks and shout out to Victor and all the organizers, checkpoint people, and sponsors. Couldn’t even imagine the pressure of organizing a race of this caliber.
