It was pointed out that we need bigger car parks at our Thursday venues with the popularity growing and numbers increasing. Sure puts a smile on the organiser’s dial. So good numbers again despite a very chilly southerly breeze and rain threatening, luckily the rain held off until the riders were finished.
A good number of juniors were supervised again by Aaron and Cheryl. Aaron was the pied piper leading a train of eager young things around two laps of the 5+ km track, a good effort all round.
The race to be first to the single track was hotly contested with Kiel, Matt, Justin and Ollie holding their nerve as they filtered down to single file. Ollie had been worried that a solid day behind a chain saw may have sapped all his energy but at the end of lap one he had a slender lead over Kiel with Justin a further 20 seconds back ahead of Matt and Luke in a close scrap for fourth. Melanie was showing the ladies the way and Zahkhan and Bailey best of the juniors.
Lap 2 was business as usual up front with the gaps slowly increasing but after lap 3 Ollie had dropped off the radar. His worries had proved real when his energy levels fell away and he was forced to flick the cruise control switch. Kiel inherited the lead and did not look back. he managed to negotiate his way around Aarons junior group while Justin had to wait patiently for a passing opportunity on the skinny track. Matt scorched away from Luke on the last lap to claim 3rd with Sven a creditable 5th after his ride out from town. Ollie seemed to recover from his melt down and went screaming off riding back to town. He will be joining a couple of other club members at the Kaiteretere race on Sunday so we wish all club members taking part a successful and enjoyable race on that awesome track.