11/12/2010
The first criterium race of the summer brought out good numbers of riders which led to competitive racing.
A and B combined to make a field of 15 riders, the biggest for many years. The race was planned to sort out who was the superior rider out of Kane Walker who is recovering from a knee injury and a long layoff and Shane Stiles, who is racing in top form at the moment.
Jason Dastey had a plan that didn’t involve Kane or Shane. He took off on lap two and established a good lead. Early breaks in Crits are usually bound to fail as this one did. Clem Fries, Joe Patrick, Geoff Thomson and Rob Monk rolled some turns and by lap three Dastey was back in the pack.
Brett Rollinson was looking strong and forced the pace at regular intervals.
Kane and Shane had a couple of cracks at each other and when they attacked no-one could go with them. The rest of the field were fortunate that Kane was not fit enough to keep the pace on so the bunch remained largely intact.
The last 15 minutes saw some great solo efforts to break up the race.
Jayman Prestidge took off up the hill and soloed for a lap. Daryl Anderson tried to bridge to him but was caught in no man’s land.
When Jayman was caught Roland Elstrom took off. He managed a lap off the front before being chased down.
With two laps to go Daryl Anderson made a strong move. Only a concerted chase by Scott Keeble brought him back to field by the bell. It appeared a sprint finish was on the cards as the field was together at the top of the King St hill on the bell lap.
Anderson, who had be claiming he was spent after his breakaway attempts, surprised everyone with a strong attack out of the second last corner. Jayman Prestidge also gapped a small group of riders rounding the home turn.
Anderson powered to the finish to take the win. Prestidge was being chased down by first Joe Patrick then Clem Fries but they had Geoff Thomson, Pete Finlayson and Rob Monk sitting on them waiting for a final surg into the head wind. The sprinters left their run just too late though and Prestidge hung on to take a well-deserved second spot. Thommo won the sprint for third from Pete and Rob.
In the Kane vs Shane show Stiles scored a points win.
The C graders started with bunch of 7 riders. Track specialist Andrew Nichols dominated the race setting a tempo up the King St hill that even light weight juniors Cy Monk and Jayden Manitveld struggled to follow. Ray York lost contact on lap 3 and Paul Kennedy stuck with them for 5 laps. Danny Dilger struggled up the King St hill but used his superior bike handling skills to advantage making up good time on the corners and driving hard down the hills. Ross Henry was his usual workhorse self, dragging the bunch up Burke St into the strong head wind.
Andrew led out the sprint and was too strong for Jayden and Cy. Next home was Ross followed by Danny, Paul and Ray.
D grade pair Greg Horbowitz and Andrew DeBona staged a match race. They were still together after 35 minutes but Greg slowly pulled away taking the win.
