Riders had another great night weather wise and this and good numbers produced some spirited racing and close results. Two new riders had their first races for the season. However, there is only next Friday night left for track racing this season. The club will continue to run Wednesday night training sessions for the next 3 Wednesdays which will take riders up to the start of the Sunday morning criteriums at the Industrial Estate over the latter part of March.
First racing on Friday was the 1 lap time trial and riders all put in new personal bests or close to them. Tom Fitzgerald managed to have a night off work so fronted up and raced a great 32.74 sec lap. Next was Erica Deeryat 40.75 sec just ahead of Zoe Reiter 40.85sec. Renee Hardacre clocked 43.09sec, Grace Peterson 44.75sec, and then it was very tight for the next trio – Emiley Hadicke 47.69, Kate Geary 47.77 and Jayda Simpson 48.61sec (First ride). Stephen Spencer on the smaller bike and his first ride was 56.42 sec.
The Under 15 group raced a 6 lap scratch race and Tom Fitzgerald kept Zoe Reiter boxed in whilst Renee slipped home for a win just ahead of Tom with Zoe 3rd. In the Under 13 race over 4 laps, it was Erica taking the win from Grace and Jayda. The handicapper then got to work for some 1 lap events. In the first Under 15 handicap Tom Fitzgerald (scr) flashed home for a win from Zoe (60) and Renee (80). In the re-handicap, Renee (110) could sense a win and blasted away from the start to lead all the way to win from Zoe(80) and Tom (Scr).
In the Under 13 handicap, Stephen Spencer(110) lead all the way to win from Emiley(55) and Kate(45). After the re-handicap, it Kate(40) moving around for the win from Jayda(55) and Stephen (70) just getting home for 3rd. Expect some close results next week as the handicapper has almost resolved the best marks.
The riders then had a round of sprint heats. First up were Grace and Renee and this was a real battle with Renee just managing to eke out the win. Next to try out were Zoe and Erica. Zoe proved to have the speed over the last 200m to take the win. The last heat saw Jayda, Kate, Emiley and Stephen start together. Kate was the first to make the move and this saw her hang on for a win from Emiley, Jayda and Stephen.
In a new event for the riders, they were challenged with a progressive points scratch race. In the Under 15 group, raced over 6 laps, Zoe grabbed the points from the first 4 laps to have 10 points which meant that Tom had to take the last 2 laps to score the win. He was up to the challenge relegating Zoe to 2nd and Renee with 3rd. In the Under 13 race over 5 laps, Erica moved out and grabbed the first lap and had Grace challenging for the next lap when Grace had a mechanical mishap and had to pull out of the race. By this stage, Erica had escaped from the bunch and rode home to take all the points. Emiley lead the bunch home for 2nd whilst Jayda finished well for 3rd.
The novelty event – a slow race on the grass saw Grace have a win and the challenge was out for another slow race. This time in a very close result Renee survived to take the honour.
Next Friday will see members have some racing followed by a BBQ and some presentations for the track season. Hopefully, there will be some of the other riders along who have missed the last couple of weeks. We also expect to see some more riders on mountain bikes have a go at the Sunday Criteriums starting March 17.
Lindsay
updated 8am 2nd June
