Club racing on Saturday was held from the Woolamai race track. At 1.00pm the start area was subject to a very heavy shower and temperatures dropped to 8C so riders were not very keen to start. However, by 2.00pm conditions had improved and the sun was shining as the riders were dispatched. The course involved riding from Woolamai via Glen Forbes to the highway where the riders were turned 180 degrees to start the long run back up the Bass Hills. From Glen Forbes the riders have a 4 km climb before the down hill run back to the Mill Rd corner. From the start of Mill Rd it is mostly uphill back to the top of the Bass Hills before the drop down to the finish. For this weekend the racing was conducted as scratch races with just A and B grade fields doing the race.
The A grade field stayed together for the first 10km but the big climb soon had some riders in trouble. By the time the field reached Mill Rd the A grade field was back to just 6 riders. The Mill Rd climbs did further damage and Tony Clark suffered a puncture half way along Mill Rd. With about 1km left to the top of Mill Rd, Elliot Gin attacked the bunch and crested the top with a gap of around 100m from Paul Taranto, Clem Fries and Tony Smith. Elliot sprinted away down the hill and managed to hold the chasing trio off over the 2km to claim the win. Next home was Paul Taranto just ahead of Clem and Tony. In 5th place was Kevin Feely then Jamie Grenvill, Tony Clark, Jake Laine, David McFarlane and Steve Piasente.
In the B grade race Steve Allen punctured after around 5km and was out of the race. Malcolm Gin and Darrin Taylor managed to go with Steve Wilson for much of the climb before the pressure weakened their resolve. This left Steve to power along by himself to claim the win ahead of Malcolm Gin and Darrin Taylor with the rest of the field well behind.
In the Junior race the limit rider took a wrong turn and allowed Tom McFarlane and Mitch Gin to eliminate the starting handicap. Mitch was chasing Tom by a minute and over the run from Woolamai to Glen Forbes and return he just failed to catch Tom – the finish gap being just 1 sec.
updated 10am 8th Dec.
