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Friday night winter track racing Week 6
Dunc Grey Velodrome, Sydney, July 21, 2006
By Paul Craft
Once again last Friday's racing attracted a large number of FNWTR first timers who were spread throughout the 5 divisions. Many of them chose Division 5 which is the lowest grade. Although Div 5 is not necessarily the slowest grade it is, however, the grade with smallest field. We specifically ensure that this grade never has more than 8 riders to give the beginning riders that little bit extra room to move.
Big fields not for Div 5
The Feature race of the night was the Madi-Craft handicap sponsored by Veloflex Tyres. Riders had to qualify for this race by finishing in the top 4 of the opening round's scratch race. Once this was completed the 16 riders took their marks - Div1 Scratch, Div 2 80-100m, Div 3 170-190m and Div 4 220-230m.
The Race was conducted on a Miss'n'Out format. Immediately from the first lap it was only the Division 1 riders who were at risk of being eliminated. Both Patrick Bolan and Shaun Hopkins lost their chance of the $930 prize pool. At this point the remaining two Div 1 riders (J-L Rathbone and Luke Davidson) had caught the Div 2 group and rode straight through them. This caught the group by surprise and one by one all the Div 2 riders were eliminated whilst J-L and Luke cruised across to the combined Div 3 and Div 4 groups. At this point the race settled into a standard elimination race, with the weaker or tactically challenged riders being eliminated first.
One rider quickly became a crowd favourite. This was the youngster from Div 4, Tirian McManus who, even for the untrained eye, was clearly spinning a much smaller gear then his remaining compatriots. Tirian scraped through a few close calls and made it to the final four riders. Being the only Div 4 rider left, his time was surely up, however no-one had told this to Tirian who sprinted high on the track as Jackson Law looked left when he should have looked right.
Now with three riders remaining, Tirian gave it his all to come around Luke Davidson in the final 100m. Even the nasty flick that Luke gave Tirian did not deter him, however in the end guts and determination will only get you so far. Incidentally, when the video replay of the night's racing was viewed in the HBT post race, the crowd booed at the screen when they relived the flick.
Tirian rode with a big heart.
The Final sprint came down to J-L and Luke with J-L leading out and holding off the late challenge to win an impressive victory.
The Top three riders all received a pair of Veloflex Record tyres. To put it in simple terms these tyres weighing in at 130g are the fastest thing you will ever put on your bike.
Round 3's Win'n'Out race may be new to some but is an exciting sprinters event for FNWTR regulars. The key tactic is: if you go to win a sprint, you make sure you win it. Donna Meehan showed everyone how not to do it in her Div 3 race. Donna went for the first sprint and was easily beaten by Michael Stokes (1st place). She now found herself in a lead group of three and wisely decided to launch her sprint early to claim 2nd, unluckily for Donna, Darren Kelly came out of the bunch passing everyone including Donna to claim 2nd place. Donna now found herself way out in front by herself all she had to do was ride the lap and claim 3rd. Wrong! A fresh Terry Freshwater sprinted hard to catch and easily pass Donna who was now clearly suffering. The last and final sprint for fourth place, was not really a sprint and Donna was not out-sprinted, instead she was so tired that Michelle Crawford casually passed the crawling lead rider to claim 4th place. End result - Donna Meehan had nothing to show except for an excruciating pained face.
The Mystery race is another tactical race. The Division 1 event was won by a well timed attack by David Nelson who hit the bell lap with a 20m lead, as the riders behind scrambled to get up to pace.
Results
Junior Development Demonstration 1 Jade Reynolds 2 Brendon Cole 3 Will Hardie 4 Cassandra Land Round 1 Warm up scratch race Div 5 1 Alistair Mcausland 2 Sharon Hughes 3 Robert Brooks 4 David Macefield Div 4 1 Tirian Mc Manus 2 Tom Harvey 3 Craig Sainsbury 4 Timothy Maranik Div 3 1 David McLeod 2 Jackson Law 3 Grant Fahey 4 Joshua Ewan Div 2 1 Daniel McMaster 2 Alex Carver 3 Liam Melville 4 Ben Elliott Div 1 1 Patrick Bolan 2 JL Rathbone 3 Luke Davidson 4 Shaun Hopkins Round 2 The Madi-Craft wheelrace Sponsored by Veloflex 1 JL Rathbone 2 Luke Davidson 3 Tirian McManus 4 Jackson Law 5 David McLeod Round 3 handicap Div 5 1 Jacyn Mellish 2 David Macefield 3 Robert Brooks 4 Jamie Paris Win'N'Out Div 4 1 Andrea Beer 2 Scott Carver 3 Jacyn Mellish 4 Chad Doering Win N Out Div 4 1 Tom Harvey 2 Graeme Heap 3 Stephen Sanders 4 David Russell Win'N'Out Div 3 1 Michael Stokes 2 Darren Kelly 3 Terry Freshwater 4 Michelle Crawford Win N Out Div 3 1 Joshua Ewan 2 Andrew Herlehen 3 David McLeod 4 Michael Leach Win'N'Out Div 2 1 Alex carver 2 David Mc Master 3 Keith Oliver 4 Mark Scribins Win'N'Out Div 1 1 Brent Dawson 2 Patrick Bolan 3 Luke Davidson 4 JL Rathbone Round 4 Scratch Div 5 1 Robert Brooks 2 David Macefield 3 Sharon Hughes 4 Jacyn Mellish Mystery Div 4 1 Chris Hunt 2 Tom Harvey 3 Graeme Heap 4 David Russell Mystery Div 3 1 Joshua Ewan 2 Jackson Law 3 Andrew Herlehen 4 David McLeod Mystery Div 2 1 Alex Carver 2 Brad Craft 3 Mark Scribbins 4 Gary Mandy Mystery Div 1 1 David Nelson 2 jason Roberts 3 JL Rathbone 4 Shaun Hopkins Round 5 Fast group Combine 1 Richard Easter 2 Stephan sanders 3 Andrew Herlehen 4 Neil Land Faster group Combine 1 Scott Law 2 Anthony Cole 3 Jackson Law 4 Ben Harvey Fastest group Combine 1 JL Rathbone 2 Jason Roberts 3 Stuart Lane 4 Andrew Herrmann
