Club Races
Parnaby Scores Narrow
Win
Fyans Creek Handicap
Monday 14th March 2011
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Peter
Parnaby |
Beautiful weather and an extra day
to the weekend drew a good field of riders for the
Grampians Vets 44km Fyans Creek Handicap, held last
Monday.
Limit riders Trevor McDonald, Les
Power and John McIntyre made good use of their 16 minute
start over scratch to remain out of sight until the
closing stages of the race.
Nine minute riders Tom
Eldridge, Stuart King and Peter Mayo put in a valiant
effort but were caught by 5 minute riders Shaun Blackie,
Glenn Ford, Wayne Klauss and Peter Parnaby with 10
kilometres to go.
Combined, these two bunches became
a formidable force, making the job of 2 minute riders
Rod Hetherington, Drew Heard, Crystal Wemyss and Daryl
Elliott much harder.
Further back, the scratch riders
Frank Kean, Peter Wemyss, Sean Prins and Drew Gray
put in the hard work early on, and pulled back a fair
amount of time on the bunches ahead, but then after
dropping one of their number started to run out of
steam.
With 7 kilometres to go, the limit
riders had a minute and a half over the combined 9
and 5 minute riders, who were still working strongly.
Some mighty turns at the front by Shaun Blackie helped
close the gap quickly, and the catch came with 2 kilometres
to go.
In the final sprint, Blackie led out
early, but with 250 metres to go, Stuart King made
a break for the line, with Peter Parnaby on his wheel.
King provided the textbook lead out for Parnaby, who
made his bid in the last 30 metres to overcome the
tiring King and grab the win by half a wheel. Tom Eldridge
was third ahead of Glenn Ford.
Frank Kean recorded the fastest time
of the day.
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