Race 4 of the Trust house Teams Racing Series took place on Sunday 14 November and was the ‘queen stage’ finishing on Rangimutau Hill north of Masterton
In Category 2 there were 5 riders from Manawatu in the top 10. Winston Briggs and Caleb Bottcher riding for WCNI were 4th and 5th, Wilson Hannan riding for Total Sheetmetals Bike Manawatu Cat 2 team was 6th, with no Category 1 race this round, Mathew Jamieson riding as an individual was 9th, and Cameron Jones from WCNI was 10th. Caleb Botcher had had a firm hold on the Leaders jersey since race 1 and with 77 points, has a lead of 23 points over his nearest rival. The WCNI team has been leading the teams points for Cat 2 and has a lead of 34 points, so is guaranteed to win Category 2, Total Sheetmetals Bike Manawatu is 2nd with Green Performance Coaching who have some local riders in their team are 3rd
In Category 3 Dave Jackson from Madison Cycle Clothing finished 4th, with team mate Jackson Fellowes 5th, and Andy Richardson 6th – Andy completed the Gentle Annie Cycle race the day before in a cracking time of 4 hours 34 minutes and 53 seconds. Jackson and Dave have been taking turn about with the Leaders Jersey in Cat 3 – Jackson had it after race 1, then Dave after race 2, with the jersey retuning to Jackson after race 3 and now they are both tied for first place while Andy Richardson is 5th. Both Jackson and Andy are under 17 riders – so this is a fantastic result and they will definitely be 2 riders to keep an eye on. The Madison Cycle Clothing team established and managed by Kevin Laskey is tied for first place in the teams points for Cat 3
In the Category 4 race, Mike Thompson from Storage Manawatu broke away very early on and after a few kms was joined by team mate Mike Dunne, Ross Rainham from Palmfeilds Bike Manawatu and a rider each from Kapiti, Tararua Builders and Pedal Project. Ross Rainham finished 4th with Mike Thompson and Mike Dunne 5th and 6th. Darren Murdie, Patrick Johnstone and Georgia Simpson were 9th, 10th and 11th, and Carl Dickason and Toshi Yamauchi 13th and 14th.
This Category has seen a similar tussle for the Leaders Jersey between Chris Sharrott from Kapiti and Darren Murdie from Palmfeilds Bike Manawatu – Chris just edged out Darren in race 1 to take the jersey, then Darren took the lead in race 2, with them both tied together after Race 3 and Darren taking the Leaders Jersey back after race 4. Darren has a lead of 3 points over Chris, and after his effort in the break Mike Thompson is sitting in third place only 4 points behind Chris.
Storage Manawatu are 2nd in the team points with Palmfeilds Bike Manawatu in 3rd place.
The final race takes place on Sunday 5 December and is shaping up to be pretty exciting with challengers for the podium from local riders in categories 2, 3 and 4.