Track Racing Report Jan 13th 2012

The Christmas break has seen some of the club cyclists busy recording some great results whilst others have been taking a holiday. Thomas McFarlane has been busy travelling to track meetings at Horsham, Bendigo and Echuca.  The days have been mixed with the weather cutting short the racing at Echuca but Thomas has still won several races and placed in a number of other events.  He has also been training hard with track coach Tony Smith and is on track for the State track titles next weekend.

Stuart Smith and Nick Aitken did not race the Jayco Bay Series of races in the new year preferring to save their efforts for the National Road Titles.  Nick competed in 3 events and helped get team mates from the Jayco-AIS squad onto the podium in all events and managed a 5^th place in the Under 23 time trial.  Stuart only rode the 123 km road race at Buninyong.  There were around 120 starters but only about 20 finishers.  Stuart managed to claim tenth place finishing in the lead bunch behind the first 4 placegetters.

Track racing resumed on Friday night but numbers were down with many riders still on holidays.  Thomas McFarlane showed his training is going well as he took almost a second of his previous best for the 1 lap time trial with a time of 31.18 sec. This will keep the senior riders honest when they return.  Visiting rider Greta Curran put in a good ride with a time of 37.63 sec whilst Hamish Bissett was at 39.63 sec.

The 5 lap scratch race went to Thomas from Greta and Hamish in a sprint finish.  In the 1 lap handicap Greta Curran (50m) just managed to catch Hamish (70m) before the line whilst Thomas (scr) was still 20m adrift.  In the follow up 2 lap handicap, Hamish has a start of 110m with Greta (70) and Thomas again on scratch.  Greta did not back up her racing and Hamish once again had the finish line in site only to have Thomas cruise past and grab the win.

With the State Titles coming up the riders were given an opportunity to practice their flying 200m efforts.  Thomas showed good speed and technique to record a 13.46 sec but will need to change it around when he rides the 250m indoor track at Northcote next weekend.  The flying 200m time is used for seeding the riders for their sprint event.

The last ride of the night was a 1 9 lap motor paced event.  Again it was Thomas coming around Greta and Hamish for the win.