Even with all the excitement of Grafton to Inverell and the St Mary’s Revue sweeping into action, we still managed to find time for a bit of Crit racing this weekend.
Senior riders were again visible in numbers at the track while junior racing was on, definitely a plus for all concerned and it makes for great entertainment too. This week Karlee had the new ‘squashed’ cones out and lined up a junior v’s senior ‘cone-off’ which the juniors won hands-down, especially against Kirkie who despite a sneaky warm-up, still manged to clip at least half the cones on his slalom effort under pressure.
PB’s were broken in the 1-lap junior time-trial, followed by a graded 5-lap race and there were also a few new faces in evidence which bodes well and is a tribute to the ongoing work Karlee and the team put in each Saturday afternoon.
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With the gluteus giants and support crews up the road at G2I, and the Munday’s out of town things were looking up for the rest of us on a warm breezy afternoon. Wilf split things into A, B and C grade with 35 minutes-ish plus 2 laps apiece. From the A grade off, Kirkie was determined to bust the group up and did a few tough charges up the hill for about 5 laps, encouraging anyone game enough to come with him before settling down once he’d decimated the field. The remaining A graders found it more pleasant travelling with the B grade mob where Tad Davenport lived up to his name arriving a tad late and slotting in after a couple of laps with fresh legs driving the pace along. Things were looking good for a bunch sprint when, on the penultimate lap, skippy and his two friends made an appearance from the undergrowth, pausing mid-track in front of the approaching riders. With Wilko yelling and carrying on and brakes being hurriedly applied back up the line, new boy Paul Williams took off with Tad leaving the rest to gingerly navigate around the hazards and fight for third place while Paul pipped Tad in the sprint by half a wheel. Michael Harris deserves special mention for a 30-minute solo time trial, lapping at a very respectable clip throughout.
C grade heralded the first senior outing for young Lachie Harris, who not content with junior racing the hour before, decided to give whatever he had left. Working well with Karlee McMillan and Jo Wauch, the three swapped turns and with lots of encouragement, Lachie dug deep to win the sprint – well done Lachie!
Back with A grade and after a couple of 1m:45s laps things settled back to low 1:m50’s until the 20th and final lap which was a 1m:40s with Rob Tindale finding himself leading the pack through the esses and consequently unable to hold off the marauders once they rounded the top bend. Kirkie launched a final and successful attack with Lachie McPhee second and Rob Hale third.
Amidst the puffing and panting, Wilf announced that proceedings would be rounded off with an Italian pursuit. The format had to be explained at least twice to Kirky but it must have sunk in as coming off a slight deficit with 1 lap to go he powered his team of 7 riders to an impressive last half lap win over a fast-fading Lachie McPhee while Chris Stace went off in search of Skippy to have words about what might have been…