Club Races
Les Powers to Another Victory
Halls Gap
- Sunday 19th August 07
|
 |
|
Les
Power |
|
|
The club held a dress rehearsal for
next weekends 10th annual 2 day Grampians VCV Open.
The
race was held over the same 61km course, with the exception
that the riders left from the Halls Gap Hotel car park
instead of the Halls Gap oval. Riders then proceeded
out to Pomonal, across to Mokepilly past Lake Fyans,
before doing a loop around Lake Lonsdale to finish
at the Halls Gap end of Fyans Creek Road.
Limit riders Larry Bales, Les Power and Ted McCabe
lead the field away off 16 minutes, making better than
expected time through the Sandbar Road hills.
Tony Lloyd, Richard Clark and
Stuart King, riding from 2 minutes 30 seconds, caught
10 minute riders Tania Walter and John McIntyre halfway
up McCracken's Hill, picking up Walter as they went
past in pursuit of the elusive limit markers.
Meanwhile McCabe was struggling to stay with the vastly
improved Power and Bales, who stormed home over the
last 10 kilometres to fight out the major placings,
still a good 400m in front of the next group of riders.
In the final sprint, Les Power's strength edged him
5 metres ahead of Bales to take out the win.
Stuart King lead the second group across the line
for third placing, leading out strongly and crossing
the line well ahead of his team mates.
|
 |
Click
to enlarge |
Left
to right - Larry Bales, Les Power and Stuart King |
Scratch riders Allan Barnett, Daryl
Elliott and Jamie Bennett finished a further 200 metres
behind. Even though the scratch riders could see the
group in front from about the half way point, they
struggled to make any major inroads on their lead.
Daryl
Elliott rode well to record the fastest race time of
1 hour 34 minutes
|