Club Races
Les too Powerful
Fyans Creek, Monday 26th January 2009

	Les Power

With a hot day forecast, an 8am start ensured cool riding conditions for Monday’s Grampian Vets 44km Fyans Creek handicap.

Being the first handicap for the year, riders were still a little soft from the Christmas break, and most bunches eased into the racing slowly, enjoying the advantage of a tail wind start.

Limit riders Les Power, Meg Parnaby and Tom Eldridge made good use of their twelve minute start to stay well clear until the last 4 kilometres of the race.

The four minute riders, Steve Monks, Tony Lloyd, Leon Gibson and Peter Mayo lost Mayo early on, but still rode strongly to hold off the two and a half minute riders Drew Heard, Peter Parnaby, Alan Barnett and Harvey Lang until 8 kilometres from the finish, when both groups combined.

Over the closing stages this combined group sighted the limit markers and drew to within 400 metres with 1 kilometre to go, but the gap proved too big, and Les Power took out the sprint from Tom Eldridge, with Meg Parnaby third.

The combined middle bunches finish 200 metres behind, while the scratch riders Chris Scott, Tim Schneider, Dean Hayward and Frank Kean finished a minute and a half later, with Schneider taking the fastest race time of 1 hour 10 minutes.