There were more spectators than racers yesterday with at least a dozen club members electing to watch rather than do battle on Boorolong once more. Perhaps the tough course has got inside their heads, or maybe the combination of winter, school holidays and mechanical troubles provided enough of an excuse. Whatever it was, those who did race seemed to enjoy it and with the current top 3 absent, it was an opportunity for others to climb their way up the Road Racer League Table.

Captain Creagan was attempting to start and maybe break into the RROTY top 3. He might have slotted in with Go rider Chris Belson but a last minute puncture put paid to that idea and Chris rolled off solo with a monster 10 minute gap on a four-strong group that included Carl Hooton. Clearly the handicapper thinks Carl is foxing as he was paired with Chris last weekend and ended up finishing 3 minutes slower.

Kirky found himself in Block but with Houlty having gear troubles it wasn’t the Block group he wanted and the thought of trying to race Mick Harris and Dave Munday was enough to push him up the order. He didn’t seem to go that well though, recording his slowest average speed for 3 years, although there was an impressive list of excuses being discussed at the Bowling Club afterwards.

The 8-minute group was picked up pretty quickly on the outward leg and the 10-minute mob then charged on with work to do to catch front-runner Chris Belson. Chris was already navigating the turn when the chasers were still climbing up towards Claremont Rd with an advantage of just over 6 minutes. Chris never looked back and comfortably time-trialed home to cross the line for his first race win, over two and a half minutes ahead of the pack.

Further back, the Scratch pair weren’t doing too badly, picking off the debris of the bunch ahead but with road rapidly running out, they were never going to reach the front. Katherine Hosking went well in her first road race for 3 months but was outsprinted by a determined Lachie McPhie on the line and had to settle for third with Tinny and Ben Livings rounding out the bonus places.

At the top of the Road Racer League Table, Dave Munday slots into third place, now just 8 points behind Chris Stace but other Top 5 places remain the same.

Congratulations Chris Belson on the first race win and many thanks to Jo Wauch for putting the signs out and running the race. Many thanks also to Hixit for providing photography from the race, more shots can be found online on their Facebook page. Next weekend we stick with the hills but switch to Long Swamp for Round 10.

[table id=209 /]

Note the handicaps in the table above look a little odd but those were the actual start times for all riders according to the GoPro footage.