Stuart Smith and Matt Dudley were the trophy winners in Saturdays club racing at Pound Creek. The day was warm and windy and riders were looking for plenty of hydration over the race. The senior A grade riders had a scratch race over 2 laps of the 24 km circuit racing for the McIndoe Cup. A field of 10 riders faced the starter and the clear favourite was Club champ, Stuart Smith. Several of the normal backmarkers were missing and all he needed to do was make it hard enough to weaken the few power sprinters left in the field to secure the race. After the first lap the field had dwindled by 2 and by the time they lined up for the dash to the line the field was down to 7 and perhaps importantly the main sprint danger was not among that number. Stuart lead out with 200m to the line to win easily. Leading home the bunch was Phil Camenzuli for 2nd, 3rd to Tom Debenham, 4th Neil White and 5th to Peter Hollins.

In the B grade race over 2 laps there were 5 starters. The first lap saw plenty of work put in by Rod Cheney and Morgan Clark. This resulted in an unfit Tom Dudley calling it quits after 1 lap. With Steve Wilson and Damian Crowe just trying to survive it was a battle of wits between the master in Rod Cheney and the junior in Morgan Clark over the final lap. However it was the young legs prevailing at the finish with Morgan winning easily from Rod, Damian and Steve.

The Junior B grade riders raced a handicap over 12km for the Dancs Trophy. First away on 6minutes was James Scott on a new bike. Next was Matt Dudley on 2min, Thomas McFarlane on 1 minute and Will Lumby on Scratch. The head wind and uphill run to the turn saw the field close up with Will catching Thomas. However, out front it was still James going well. However, with about 1 km to go Matt finally caught up and cruise past to go on a claim the win. The others finished fast with Will getting up for 2nd and fastest just ahead of Thomas and James just a few seconds away and also pleased with his ride.

Earlier in the day on the Gold Coast Phil Hanley competed in the ITU World Age Group Triathlon Championships over the Olympic distance(1.5k/40k/10k).He finshed in a time of 2:11:10 claiming 5th place in the 55-59 age group.

Nick Aitken competed in the recent 14 stage Tour of the Murray placing 5th in hte GC and winning the KOM. Scroll down to end of August for results

Next week racing is at Woolamai and in the hills. Club members have a monthly meeting at Phil Ewington’s on Tuesday night..

Race report by Lindsay Love