Red Bull Minidrome returns to London's East End + video

The world's smallest velodrome is returning to the East End, in the shadow of the world's newest and shiniest velodrome. While the London 2012 hopefuls will have their eyes firmly set on the 250m track at the Olympic village, you can try your luck on one that's just 14m in length. Last time the track came to London it was Chris Akrigg who took the win; check out the video below to see his winning run. The Minidrome has also visited Manchester and Glasgow, and toured Europe. Now it's back in the smoke and there's more track time than ever available.

It's a proper track, this. Built in Germany by Velotrack, the team who made the velodromes for the Atlanta Olympics and the Delhi Commonwealth Games, it's a more of a test of bike handling skill than speed or stamina. This year there's a separate qualifying day on Saturday 17 March, which means that there's 400 places up for grabs in the qualifying rounds.

Interested? To register just head over to www.redbull.co.uk/minidrome and get your name on the list. Qualifying places will be drawn at random if there are more than 400 entrants, and your quallifying run is a 10-lap individual time trial on the boards. The fastest 32 competitors will go through to the main event on Sunday 18 March, and for that event it's a knockout pursuit format. All riders are paired at random and set off on opposite sides of the track and the fastest rider progresses.

As well as 400 qualifying places there are 500 spectator spots for anyone that wants to watch the action on the Sunday. It's first come first served at the venue and the racing starts at 3pm, so make sure you're there early if you want to guarantee a trackside spot.