Results for Tuesday 11th December:
Under 15 5 laps Handicap race:1 Flyn Yates, 2 Gorgi van Leinen, 3 Libby Arbuckle, 4 Dylan Simpson
Under 17 2 lap Scratch race 1: 1 Campbell Stewart, 2 Chris Denholm, 3 Josh Kendall, 4 Fergus Allen
Under 17 2 lap scratch race 2: 1 Michaela Drummond, 2 James Cuff, 3 Cody Simpson, 4 Andrew McKenzie
I write this sitting in a large kitchen in the Station Lodge and Guesthouse in Ohakune, just having filled my belly with poached eggs and banana on toast. We’ve just come back from riding up the mountain; a pretty hard climb if you’re not familiar with it, but the view from the top is well worth the effort.
Today is day three of our summer training camp. On the first day (Tue 18th) we rode from Palmerston North to Wanganui via Hunterville. We completed about 140 km that day, and climbed a total of 1200m. Next day we road up State Hwy 4 to Ohakune (105 km) which meant another 1500m of climbing. Needless to say, there were a few tired legs last night.
A mild calm evening with a heavy sky threatening rain. It did rain just before the scheduled start time but the warm track allowed the track to dry sufficiently to allow the meeting proceed if half an hour late. It did mean the meeting had to be condensed a little but the programme was completed with no further rain falls. The programme was made up of mid sized points races followed by 3 up 500 metre scratch races and finished off with the longer handicap races.
Denay Cottam capped off a fantastic afternoon of racing, holding off Jordan Castle and Mark Findlay in a rapid sprint finish at the end of the 10km Open Senior Laykold Cup scratch race.
A warm evening with a clear sky and a light Westerly zephyr welcomed the 36 riders to Johnston Park on Tuesday night. The programme was to be short scratch races followed by one lap individual time trials then on to team sprints and was to finish off with long handicap races. The second last race of the evening was halted when Marcel Hollenstein came down at speed, Marcel was in the middle of a line of 8 riders when he fell. Thankfully the following riders passed without incident because track bikes do not have brakes. If the bikes had brakes the human instinct is to brake and by doing so catching the following riders off guard and they would most likely hit the rear of the rider in front and crash. As the bikes had been travelling at the same speed and the riders did not have the ability to slow significantly the riders continued at the same pace and with the same distances between them. The modest bike helmet provided outstanding protection to Marcel by absorbing significant impact with, and friction across the track.