Originally Posted by carleton

For new racers:
Focus on simply staying in the Sprinter's Lane during time trials. Trying to ride on the black line will take too much mental energy because you will be distracted with the edge of the track. All of that energy spent will make you tense and you will be slower.

In mass start, simply focus on holding the wheel in front of you and staying directly behind with a gap large enough for you to deal with small speed changes, which happen for various reasons. Further, if you are slightly inside, you risk getting under the rider in front and that rider coming down on you and taking your wheel out. The draft is very wide and longer than you think. You'll be fine riding directly behind.

Don't overthink this stuff.

Originally Posted by carleton

For experienced racers:
When you enter corners on a track, you scrub off speed. And to regain the speed lost, you have to push harder on the pedals. You can see this in power files. TT specialists have learned to make the track more circular than oval by drifting wide on the straights and falling into the turns then drifting wide on the exit. This is technically more distance, but it's smoother in terms of speed and power and generally makes for a better performance, especially on tracks with tight turns like 250M tracks.