Despite the muddy, knobbly-tyred goings on over the other side of town at the Piney, 19 riders more accustomed to racing on sealed roads headed West to the first outing for many years on the challenging Boorolong course. An upward out, and downward home affair, the handicapping was essentially unknown but again, it turned out to be pretty near perfect with a hotly contested finish ending in a bunch sprint.
Still fresh from his victory in the Autumn Festival Criterium 7 days earlier, it was great to see Paradice Investments’ Tamworth rider Mitch Carrington lining up in the 30KM handicap event and with the near perfect conditions, 23 degrees with light winds and just a hint of autumn in the air, a great race was in store.
Karlee McMillan and Ray Phillips got things underway along with Dave Jenner who, riding high in the Road Racer of the Year Standings, had his sights set on some more points. Three minutes later Jo Wauch took up the chase and a further 2 minutes after her were Pete and Richard Wilkinson and Clint Bourke. Then came a big group of 8 with league leader Luke Milan and Bathurst tandem Para-Cycling silver medalist Phil ‘Keg Legs’ Thomas amongst them. Block consisted of Kirky and Swanny plus a rightly elevated Rob Tindale and they were unleashed just 60 seconds ahead of Mitch on the outward uphill leg.
Within a few K’s the G8 had lost their King with the ever-smiling Theron deciding to ride his own race, and further upfield the Go group was also splintering. Karlee rode a great outward leg and was in first place when the turn eventually materialised (way over the top of the hill), with 20s on Dave Jenner and 50s on the next rider, Jo Wauch. The hard-charging G8 was down to 6 all of whom recorded a sub-29 minute first leg but that meant their buffer was down to 30s on scratch which now contained Carro but had lost Mr President, whose early turn was caught by the satellite spy-cam.
Just going over the railway line the small G6 lead was gone in the space of 100m as they were forced to slow for some stock which chose that particular moment to wander across the road in front of them. The fragmented field ahead was gradually picked up but it looked like Karlee and Dave might be in with an outside chance of staying away. They still had the lead at the Dumaresq Dam turnoff but were eventually collected by the bunch. The long run-in saw Luke and Jack Parker go early on the wheel of Kirky which strung the bunch of 12 out into single file. Carro wound it up in the closing stages jumping from 6th to 3rd but Kirky took the win by a bike length from Luke and Jack hung on to keep Swanny at bay for a very good 4th spot.
Fastest time of the day went to Mitch Carrington with an impressive average of 38.34kph and a sub-48 minute race in total. At the top of the Road Racer leaderboard, Luke has extended his lead to 9 points on Ice Cold Billy Mara, Kirky has catapulted himself from obscurity to 9th spot and Brendon Cole, despite finishing at the back today, has found himself in the top 10 for the first time this season.
Thanks to Kenny and Chicka for the signage and running a great race. We’ll be back for more on Boorolong on April 5th for a scratch race but there’s another Road Racer round next week with the Long Swamp 30K handicap.
Rider Place Handicap Start Time Finish Time Out Leg Home Leg Total Avg
KIRK Andrew 1 11:00 4:18:25 PM 5:06:21 PM 27:14 20:42 0:47:56 37.55
MILAN Luke 2 09:00 4:16:25 PM 5:06:21 PM 28:44 21:12 0:49:56 36.05
CARRINGTON Mitch 3 12:00 4:19:25 PM 5:06:22 PM 26:12 20:45 0:46:57 38.34 FT
PARKER Jack 4 09:00 4:16:25 PM 5:06:23 PM 28:46 21:12 0:49:58 36.02
SWAN Andrew 5 11:00 4:18:25 PM 5:06:23 PM 27:13 20:45 0:47:58 37.53
MARA Billy 6 09:00 4:16:25 PM 5:06:23 PM 28:43 21:15 0:49:58 36.02
BOURKE Dene 7 09:00 4:16:25 PM 5:06:25 PM 28:48 21:12 0:50:00 36.00
THOMAS Phil 8 09:00 4:16:25 PM 5:06:29 PM 28:50 21:14 0:50:04 35.95
CREAGAN Pete 9 09:00 4:16:25 PM 5:06:30 PM 28:52 21:13 0:50:05 35.94
JENNER Dave 10 00:00 4:07:25 PM 5:06:30 PM 35:45 23:20 0:59:05 30.47
WILKINSON Peter 11 05:00 4:12:25 PM 5:06:32 PM 31:41 22:26 0:54:07 33.26
WILKINSON Richard 12 05:00 4:12:25 PM 5:06:54 PM 31:41 22:48 0:54:29 33.04
TINDALE Rob 13 11:00 4:18:25 PM 5:07:31 PM No Data No Data 0:49:06 36.66
BOURKE Clint 14 05:00 4:12:25 PM 5:07:31 PM 31:41 23:25 0:55:06 32.67
McMILLAN KARLEE 15 00:00 4:07:25 PM 5:08:12 PM 35:25 25:22 1:00:47 29.61
WAUGH Jo 16 03:00 4:10:25 PM 5:08:51 PM 33:14 25:12 0:58:26 30.80
PHILLIPS Ray 17 00:00 4:07:25 PM 5:11:36 PM 37:14 26:57 1:04:11 28.04
COLE Brendon 18 09:00 4:16:25 PM 5:11:43 PM No Data No Data 0:55:18 32.55
KING Theron 19 09:00 4:16:25 PM 5:13:29 PM No Data No Data 0:57:04 31.54