The rain earlier in the day and the heavy threatening sky cast doubt on track cycling going ahead tonight but 24 brave souls plus support staff took the punt that the rain would stay away and racing will proceed. Apart from some light rain at the start of the racing the track remained dry enough for the full race programme to be completed. The two lap team sprints were bookended with the usual short , medium and long scratch and handicap races.
The performance of note for the meeting was that of Carne Groube in the final long lap A grade handicap race. Carne began with the scratch riders, half a lap down from the limit men in the 16 lap race. The lessons of last weeks race had not been wasted on the limit men and they quickly rolled their sleeves up and worked to maintain the half lap advantage. The scratch riders quickly hit and then maintained 95%, but the gap was being maintained. With 10 laps to go both bunches began to show signs of the pressure. After another few laps riders began to drop off and gaps started to appear. The bunches became more vocal as they tried to encourage riders to increase effort.
The longer the race proceeded the smaller the bunches became, with still 6 laps to go Carne was leading the scratch bunch effort riding solo to bridge the gap to the two remaining limit men. The conditions were not favorable with a challenging wind sapping the strength of the legs and the determination of the spirit, the wind hit the riders coming out of turn two and continued to buffet them all the way down the back straight. Despite the wind Carne continued to fight and to close the gap. With 2 laps to go Carne completed the task and joined the two limit men, he took the opportunity to sit on to recover and prepare for the final sprint. The bell rang and the three riders were tensing in wait for the first move at the beginning of the back straight, Carne hit the go button and in a blink created a gap that could not be matched which allowed him to win the race with a comfortable margin.
The next track cycling meeting is Tuesday 3rd of November with racing to begin 6.10pm.
Results for Tuesday 25th November:
Under 15 6 Lap race:1 Dineth Rajapaske, 2 Fergus Washington-Smith, 3 Anna Stewart, 4 Max Cousins
B & C Grade 6 Lap race: 1 John Stewart, 2 Brent Zimmerman, 3 Greg Bryan, 4 Toshi Yaumachi
A Grade 7 Lap race: 1 Carne Groube, 2 Jaycob Humphreys, 3 James Denholm, 4 Fergus Allan
Under 15 2 Lap Handicap race: 1 Anna Stewart, 2 Max Cousins, 3 Dineth Rajapaske, 4 Fergus Washington-Smith
B & C Grade 3 lap Handicap race: 1 Bradley Stevens, 2 Kate Stewart, 3 Liam Brown, 4 Fergus Bryan,
A Grade 3 lap Handicap race: 1 Carne Groube, 2 James Denholm, 3 James Cuff, 4 Cody Simpson
2Lap team Sprint time trial:
Timming with one watch only so times are unofficial
Anna Stewart, Kate Stewart, John Stewart 1.07.50
Max Cousins, Fergus Bryan, Cody Simpson 1.09.31
Dineth Rajapaske, Libby Arbuckle, Liam Brown 1.05.91
Jaycob Humphreys, Carne Groube, James Denholm 1.00.81
Toshi Yaumachi, Hayden Washington-Smith, Joel Yates 1.06.19
Hamish Mikkelsen, Fergus Allan, James Cuff 1.02.61
Fergus Washington-Smith, Greg Bryan, Bradley Stevens 1.08.13
Under 15 7 Lap Handicap race: 1 Dineth Rajapaske, 2 Fergus Washington-Smith, 3 Max Cousins, 4 Anna Stewart
B & C Grade 12 lap Handicap race: 1 Kate Stewart, 2 Brent Zimmerman, 3 John Stewart, 4 Toshi Yaumachi,
A Grade 16 lap Handicap race: 1 Carne Groube, 2 Cody Simpson, 3 Hamish Mikkelsen, 4 Campbell Stewart
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