It was dry conditions on a typical winter afternoon down at the Long Swamp course, with a ‘feels like’ of 9 degrees and south easterly wind of ~20kph throughout the race. Eight riders turned up to parade the new club kit, which got a big thumbs up all round.

Jo Wauch was the GO rider, who had the simple task to just stay ahead of two chasing groups, with the Block of Christian Girard and Dene & Clint Bourke at 6mins, and the Scratch quartet of Houlty, Kirky, Shaun Brennan, and Pat Ferris a solid 14mins back.

And by end of first lap it looked like a blanket finish was on the cards, as Block and Scratch groups came together for the bell lap. The block trio splintered during the second lap with Clint waving off his companions and Dene burying himself once caught by Scratchies to finish ahead of Christian. Kirky was also working hard to stay with Scratchies and managed to do this for most of the race; Shaun was coming back from illness but did a sterling effort to encourage Pat and Houlty to do their usual flat-out racing and hit the finish line with his group.

But the star of the show was Jo, who was caught at the top of Dump Hill but dug deep to outsprint Pat for win and the 10 RROTY points, with Shaun taking the last podium spot.

Well done to all racers for racing hard and looking sharp in the new race kit; thanks to Wilf for running the race and this race report!

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