If this season was to be remembered for anything it would have to be the fantastic conditions and tonight was no exception with little cloud cover a very light westerly and a mild temperature. The stellar performance of the night was from an age group rider that was thrust into an all in final handicap race at the limit mark and held on to take the race by less than a 100 metres. The tailing off of the season was more apparent with only 13 riders making it to the meeting. Next week will be the final race night of the season and will have prize money available for selected races.
The programme tonight was made up of graded 3 lap warm up races followed by the clubs 200 metre flying start time trial championship and then finished off with an all in long handicap race.
The 200 metre time trials produced some great times Kate Stewart missing the under 17 girls record by .01 of a second. Records were broken by Sean Matena and Peter Wenborn and a record was established by Brent Zimmerman in their respective masters age group categories. The final all in 15 lap handicap race provided a difficult task for handicapper Ian Gray as he had to assess the abilities of the full range of cyclists from under 15’s to A grade riders. The limit marker Liam Barber had almost two laps on the scratch riders Luuk van Wagtendonk and Jaycob Humphreys and 9 other riders between them. At the start the riders established their respective groups and worked well together to help their individual prospects. Brent Zimmerman is not suited to these longer races so he has made a speciality of helping the limit markers by leading them and establishing a pace for them to be a threat at the finish line.
With 5 laps to go Brent and Liam had just been passed by the main bunch that had the two scratch riders at the front working hard together. As the laps counted down the normally laid back and calm under 17 rider, Liam became unusually animated and began to issue instructions to his pacemaker masters 4 rider Brent. With three laps to go the relentless attack of the scratch riders began to show signs of stress with instructions to the other riders of the group to help and take a turn at the front but this did not happen and with a lap to go Jaycob had hit the wall and Luuk found himself as the only chaser and still 200 metres from Liam. For the final lap Brent moved aside to let Liam make his sprint for the line with plenty of encouragement from the side line and buckets of enthusiasm from himself, Liam pushed like he had never pushed before and refused to let up and took out the race by less than a 100 metres.
Weather permitting the track season will conclude next week with cash prizes up for grabs to ensure the season ends with a bang.
These are the results:
C Grade 3 lap warm up race
1st Kate Stewart
2nd Ruby Perry
3rd Brittany Baker
A & B Grade 3 lap handicap race
1st Jaycob Humphreys
2nd Peter Wenborn
3rd Luuk van Wagtendonk
Clup championships 200m flying start time trial
Liam Barber 15.84
James Hutton 14.26
Michaela Drummond 16.20
Ruby Perry 15.21
Kate Stewart 14.14
Luuk van Wagtendonk 15.15
Sean Matena 13.57 New Record M1
Ross Castle 14.67
Jaycob Humphreys 14.10
Peter Wenborn 14.57 New Record M3
Brent Zimmerman 13.87 set mark M4
All in 15 lap handicap
1st Liam Barber
2nd Luuk van Wagtendonk
3rd Ross Castle