Club Races
McIntyre Takes Out 44km Handicap
Fyans Creek Handicap
Sunday 8th May 2011

	John McIntyre

John McIntyre led the limit markers to victory last Sunday, taking out a well earned win in the 44 kilometre Grampians Vets Mothers Day Handicap, held from Fyans Creek, near Halls Gap.

McIntyre combined well with fellow limit riders Meg Parnaby, and Ballarat rider Shirley Hetherington, taking full advantage of their fifteen minute start and the calm conditions, giving the chasing riders a difficult job to reel them in.

Next away were Tony Rathgeber and Peter Parnaby, riding off nine minutes, followed by the three minute riders Crystal Wemyss, Daryl Elliott, Drew Heard and Gerard O’Brien.

However, the scratch riders Dennis Kelly, Danny Monaghan, Peter Wemyss, and Sean Prins took off at break neck speed, and had the two minute riders Rod Hetherington, Shaun Blackie and Wayne Klauss in their sights early on. Due largely to the power of Kelly, these two bunches combined a third of the way into the race.

Soon after the half way point, the combined scratch and two minutes riders had caught the three minute riders as well, and set their sights on the two leading bunches, which were still out of sight. With ten kilometres to go, the nine minute riders Peter Parnaby and Tony Rathgeber were also added to the peleton.

At this point, the limit riders still had about three and a half minutes lead, and were still working hard, but the pace was high in the large chasing bunch and they were gaining rapidly.

Crossing the bridge with one kilometre to go, the limit riders still had about a minute lead, enough to get them safely to the line. John McIntyre took out the sprint from Meg Parnaby, with Shirley Hetherington third.

The rest of the field finished soon after, with Dennis Kelly powering away to take out the bunch sprint and fastest time of 1 hour and 6 minutes, an average speed of 40.5kph