GSCC Mothers day 38km Handicap.
29 riders were greeted by light winds and wet roads for the annual Mothers Day three lap dash with some lovely flowers for the winners kindly donated by Ian Sumner.
26 minutes from lone limit man Ken Mansfield to the seven men in scratch with 5 groups in between. The 10 minute and 7 minutes bunches looked a little uneven today with regards to everyone’s abilities and racing levels, the race results were favouring the faster groups. With Ken well on his way and Ross West with Terry Robinson starting 11 minutes in arrears the inevitable started quite early for the two middle groups with a few of the riders the handicapper hadnt seen for a while either riding quite strong or falling off the pace very early in the proceedings. This caused the front of the race to split into multiple small groups who weren’t with a chance today compared to the even paced and faster third, second and scratch groups. Third scratch were holding a good even tempo slowly catching the next group of riders through the first two laps with David Spence being dropped. Second scratch being lead by a very determined Robbie Southern in partnership with Nick Brown, Tony French and Carl “doesn’t ride at all” Leahy were flying up the road with massive turns by all and Robbie lifting the pace considerably dropping all the hangers today. Carl who was back in his first Sunday race for a few months was riding at his max but still doing turns.
With the renaming six scratch riders chasing hard with very smooth turns, the second scratch group had to keep charging and pushing the pace all the way around the final lap, Robbie, Tony, Nick and Carl were all riding very evenly and with Kelvin Dyson the only rider able to hang on from the third scratch group. Nigel Pearson, David Lambourn and Carl Judd doing there best from the 7 minute group. Robbie wasn’t going to let this opportunity of his first GSCC handicap win get away and powered away from all the others up misery lane for the final time and holding this high pace to the finish line for a well deserved first win, Robbie’s dedicated his race to his recently passed away mother who was riding with him all the way to the finish today, well done and congrats. Nick Brown finish not far behind in second and Carl Leahy taking third. The fight for fastest time was a tight one, Andrew Baker and visiting rider Peter Quibell (GV) rolled off the front into the finish straight, making Greg and Josh have to chase and sprint from the corner with Greg taking another fastest time one minute behind the winners.
1st Robbie Southern (2.30min 57:27 39.68km/h) 2nd Nick Brown (2.30) 3rd Carl Leahy (2.30), 4th Tony French (2.30), 5th Kelvin Dyson (5.00), 6th Nigel Pearson (7.00) 7th David Lambourn (7.00), 8th Carl Judd (7.00), 9th and fastest Gregory Hosking (scr 55:58 40.73km/h), 10th Josh Williams (scr). 1st lady finisher Kerryn Minehan.
Well done to all, thanks to Denis Sonogan for refereeing, Ian for the flowers, David Newett and Brian Long for stepping in and marshaling today. Next Sunday 21st is the Race for Ray at Learmonth.