20/02/2016
By Rob Monk
Warragul cycling club members contested a team’s race on Saturday. There were 4 teams and over 30 riders. It was the team called the Foreign Legion that won the day. This team was made up of riders from Leongatha, Latrobe City and Southern Masters.
The team’s race always starts with a flurry of attacks as teams try to get more of their riders in the early break than the other teams. The early move had plenty of riders from the Drouin Cycles team, and the Foreign Legion team. The Allsorts team was underrepresented as was the Warragul team. Things went from bad to worse for Warragul early in lap 2 when Matt Parkinson (Allsorts), Tom McFarlane(Foreign Legion) and Brett Kennedy (Drouin Cycles) jumped across to the leaders. For the Warragul team the races was effectively over unless they worked hard to bring the race back together. Warragul Team members Col Brown, Ross Henry, Col Manintveld and Neil Edwards were utterly unable to mount a cohesive chase. Henry started attacking the others while Brown would only work when chasing members of other teams who tried to jump over the gap. For this group the race degenerated into a procession. It ended in farce when Neil Edwards proudly claimed 21st place. The points only went down to 20. Maybe he should have used some energy early in the race to chase and got closer to real points.
The leaders didn’t stay together long. Jim Timmer-arends got into time trial mode and made it easy for his Drouin Cycles team to sit on while the other teams towed them around. Matt Parkinson and Harry McLead jumped across to Jim and now the race would come down to who was still there on the final lap. An added degree of complexity were the four riders, one from each team who would only be doing 6 laps not 7. Leigh Jamieson from the Foreign Legion had broken away from Macca Parkinson (Allsorts), Kerryn Milner (Warragul) and Adele Whelan (Drouin Cycles). Macca was able to stay with her father Matt, Harry and Big Jim when they came past on the last lap. Harry rode away up the finishing hill to take victory. Matt Parkinson was second with Jim Timmer-arends in third. Macca had done brilliantly to hang on for fourth giving the green team 2 of the top 4 placings. Next to finish was 6 lap rider Leigh Jamieson who put the Foreign Legion back in the lead. In the end it was Macca and Leigh who were the difference for their respective teams. Tom McFarlane (Foreign Legion), Brett Kennedy (Drouin Cycles) and Glen Marriott (Allsorts) were next to cross the line. Graeme Parker was the first Warragul team rider to finish.
The final results were.
- 68 Points. Foreign Legion: Harrison McLean, Will Lumby, Tom McFarlane, Roland elsdon, John Beech, Nick copelin, Zvonko Maric, Nicole Summerfield, Leigh Jamieson
- 60 Points. Allsorts: Matt parky, Jaygirl Prestwidge, Glynn Rickety, Dastey, Mariah Dastey, Duane McDonald, Macca Parky
- 53 Points. Drouin Cycles: Kenny, jim timmer arends, Paul Y, Baxter, Rob Monk, Jason Fritzlaff, Fred De Costa, David Smith, Adele
- 29 Points WCC: Graeme Parker, Peter Whelan, Ross Henry, Neil Edwards, Olly, Colin Brown, Matt Williamson, Colin Manintveld, Kerryn Milner
