Club Races
Concongella 53km Handicap
Concongella
Sunday 18th November 2012

	John Hunt

For the second week in a row, a variation of second scratch riders proved stronger than expected to ride through the field and take out the 53 kilometre Concongella - Campbells Bridge handicap.

With two riders back after a break and supposedly “down on form”, the bunch of Danny Monaghan, Shaun Blackie, Wayne Klauss and Dean Hayward were given a 3 minute start over scratch.

However, the scratch bunch of Peter Wemyss, Sean Prins, Crystal Wemyss, Rod Hetherington and Geoff Richards missed the start by nearly a minute after one of their number went walkabout at the wrong time, and looked to have cut off their chances before they started.

Eager to make up for lost time, the scratch riders flew over the first 20 kilometres, taking full advantage of the tail wind, to cut their resultant 4 minute deficit down to only 2 minutes, and looked like they would get back into the race. However, the effort must have taken its toll, as they only made minor gains after that for the rest of the race.

Meanwhile the second scratch riders had made big inroads on the 9 minute riders John Hunt, Alan Barnett and Edwin Irvine on the head wind leg across to Campbells Bridge, only being 20 seconds behind at the turn.

At this point the second limit riders Peter Mayo, John McIntyre and Meg Parnaby had caught the lone limit rider Shirley Hetherington, and still had a 2 and a half minute lead over the second scratch riders.

With about 10 kilometres to go, the now combined 3 and 9 minute riders overtook the limit riders, and charged on to take out the race with John Hunt taking out line honours in the sprint from Wayne Klauss and Danny Monaghan third.

Crystal Wemyss took out fastest race time for the second week in a row.