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FNWTR #8
Dunc Gray velodrome, Sydney, August 4, 2006
By Paul Craft
It was a weird and wild night of racing for week 8 of FNWTR. First off we had 11 new riders on the night, some coming from far a field. The word of FNWTR is obviously spreading as we had riders from Victor Broncos, Albury/ Wodonga and Wagga Wagga, all travelling to see what all the fuss is about. Secondly, almost every race of the night blew to pieces. The racing resembled a series of pursuits rather than the usual tactical racing we are used to.
Div 1 Italian Pursuit
The Feature race of the night was the Velosportz + Innova-tech 1.5km Wheelrace. Riders qualified for this event by placing in the top 4 of the warm up scratch race. The divisions were then split into group H’caps i.e. Div 1 at 0m, Div 2 at 80m, Div 3 at 160m Div 4 at 200m.
From the start of the race the Div 4 riders showed a little inexperience as they blew their four man group to pieces Canberra’s Howard Galloway was the rider doing the damage as he opened a huge lead which he would maintain for the first km. The Scratchies would not make the same mistake. The four Div1 riders knew the mission ahead was going to be difficult as they immediately formed a tight train with Gavin White sacrificing himself for the group, driving hard for 750m and pulling out of the event.
The Scratchies
As the remaining riders of Div 2, 3 and 4 all came together, Peloton Sports’ big man, Chris Hunt, left the group in pursuit of Howard. With a big lead, Howard cracked as quickly as Floyd Landis’ Phonak contract and he surprisingly swung up the track handing the lead to the big man. At this stage with 500m remaining the big man had a good lead and was showing no signs of fatigue, the fragmented groups where in a mixed chase group with the remaining scratch riders, Jason Roberts and Michael Lewis, still not in contact.
This was how it remained as Chris Hunt (Div 4) stormed home with a 50m advantage over Paul Connor (Div 2) and Damian McGarry (Div 2), with Tony Unicomb (Div 3) a centimeter behind in 4th. The video of this race can be freely down loaded on the FNWTR website.
The Hillbrick Series has just completed its 3rd of 5 Rounds. Friday’s Hillbrick event was Round 4’s Point’a’Lap endurance race. First prize for this 5 event series is a Ryan Bayley signature Hillbrick track bike.
As reported earlier, most of these races blew to pieces early with many riders keen to score early points. In Div 4 the battle was between Howard Gallaway and Stephan Sanders who got away early and continuously sprinted each other for the 1 point on offer each lap. Spare a thought for gutsy Natasha Pearce from Wagga Wagga, who was consistently out of contention for the 15 lap race. However her dogged determination allowed her to get up for the final point of the race and place her 4th overall.
In Div 3 Michael Smith scored 4 early points and then had his teammate Richard Pettigrew defend his lead for him. In Div 2 one of the smartest rides of the night was done by Albury’s David Stallan who scored some early points and than remained in contention to seal the deal in the final laps.
The Div 1 race was quickly blown to pieces due to a full on sprint-out between 2006 State Sprint Gold and Silver medalists, Kial Stewart and Alex Bird on the 3rd lap. The pace hit 70km/h as the two sprint specialist lit up the front of the bunch. After the wash up, Matty Pettit found himself in front of a chase group of Josh Wall and Michael Lewis with the remaining 20 Div 1 riders hyperventilating and out of the race. Michael Lewis dusted Wall as he took off in pursuit of Pettit. Lewis caught and quickly passed the fatigued Parramatta rider and began what seemed like a comfortable time trial to the victory. However Petit recovered and returned the favour to Lewis. This continual lead swapping carried on untill Michael finally cracked.
The round 5 combined scratch races signaled the return to some normality into the FNWTR with each race finishing with a solid field sprint.
Results
Combined points at August 4
1 Patrick Bolan 10 pts 2 Jackson Law 8 2 JL Rathbone 8 2 Tirian Mc Manus 8 2 Tom Harvey 8 6 Graeme Heap 7 6 Jock Murray 7 8 Michael Lewis 6 8 Shaun Hopkins 6 10 Alan Townsend 5 10 Alex Carver 5 10 Andrew Herlehen 5 10 Daniel McMaster 5 10 David McLeod 5 10 David Stallan 5 10 Howard Galloway 5 10 Manny Cachia 5 10 Mathew Pettit 5 10 Michael Smith 5 10 Paul Connor 5 10 Paul Miller 5 10 Simon Ball 5 22 Ben Elliott 4 24 Anthony Bennett 3 24 Brad Craft 3 24 Brent Dawson 3 24 Bruce Wyllie 3 24 Chris Chapman 3 24 Damien McGarry 3 24 Ross Harding 3 24 Scott Harding 3 24 Stephen Sanders 3 24 Steve Swain 3 24 Tim Dawson 3 35 Adriano Maradini 35 Bede Kelly 2 pts 35 Craig Sainsbury 2 35 Gavin White 2 35 Grant Fahey 2 35 Grant Fraser 2 35 Grant Law 2 35 Jason Roberts 2 35 Kieth Oliver 2 35 Liam Melville 2 35 Luke Davidson 2 35 Mathew Hynes 2 35 Michael Stokes 2 35 Neil Land 2 35 Pete McCrystal 2 35 Peter Barnard 2 35 Phill Hutt 2 35 Scott Carver 2 35 Simon Llewellyin 54 Andrew Grant 1 54 Chris Hunt 1 54 Joel Chant 1 54 Joshua Ewan 1 54 Kial Stewart 1 54 Mark Anthony 1 54 Mark Copeland 1 54 Martin Millwood 1 54 Neil Leifels 1 54 Paul Meehan 1 54 Phil Stokes 1 54 Timothy Maranik 1 54 Natasha Pearce 1 54 Tony Unicomb 1 54 Zara Doering 1
