The Crit season continued with elimination racing on the schedule. 26 riders turned up on a hot Saturday afternoon, and under the watchful eye of Col the racing kicked off.
Two fields were organised; with 12 riders in A grade, and and an all-in combined B/C grading of 14 riders. It was good to see some new faces, with Archie Chick & Shaun Brennan lining up with the usual stalwarts in the B & C field. Also a warm welcome back to Andrew May after returning from injury! The race format for both elimination races was a neutral first lap, and then 2 riders were eliminated each lap until 4 were left for a 4 up last lap sprint.
B/C Grade race were eliminated as follows:
Round 1: Pete Wilko & Jane Simmonds
Round 2: Pete Creagan & Jacqui King + Andrew May with mechanical
Round 3: Jo Wauch, Dene Bourke & Alex Thomas
This left, Carl Hooton, Shaun Brennan, Olive Tutt and Archie Chick to fight it out on the last lap and they finished in that order in a close tussle to the line.
A Grade race were eliminated as follows:
Round 1: Holly Harris & Hayden
Round 2: Kirky & Tom Simmonds
Round 3: Clint (retired cat burglar) Bourke & Angus Apps
Round 4: Pat Ferris and Jason Simmonds
This left Rob Hale, Dave Munday, David Harris and Nathan Paul to fight it out on the last lap. Rob took out the win from Dave & Flappy after another in a close tussle to the line, but kudos to Nathan for an impressive performance after stepping up to A grade for the first time!
With all riders keen for another bite at the cherry, a second round of racing was hastily put together, comprising a 3 lap handicap race with the two separate fields using the same grades as before. The suitably parsimonious handicaps organised by Col involved pairs of riders setting off at 10 sec intervals. The B/C grade race resulted in a terrific win by Archie Chick followed by Jo, PC and Jacqui. The A grade race resulted in a win for Hayden followed by Angus, Clint and Kirky.
It was then the last chance saloon, with the final race of the day comprising a standard 15 min + 2 laps crit in the same two race grades as before. The B/C grade race stayed together until 2 laps to go when Wilf increased the pace significantly on the penultimate ascent of Crit hill, and a from then on the remnants of the bunch drove a fast pace for the remaining 1.5 laps to the finish, with the result being a close win for Carl closely followed by Shaun, Olive and PC.
A grade was a more aggressive with Tom making several bids for glory with some strong solo attacks, which were comfortably covered by Rob Hale & Kirky, who both countered with attacked of their own. But it was all to no avail and after a hectic long sprint Jason showed Tom how it should be done taking out a great win, followed by Clint and Dave.
Thanks to Col for running the racing and compiling the race notes. We’re back at the TEC for more Crit fun next Saturday, and don’t forget we have the club awards and Xmas party at the Ex-Servos club on Sunday afternoon.