Club Races
Greg Smith Memorial Mt Arapiles 54.8km Handicap
Sunday 29th April 2018

The Field

	Kevin Grellet

Scratch
Peter Wemyss, Malcolm Hayes, Aidan Leahy and Steve Monks.

6.30 minutes
Edwin Irvine, Drew Heard and Tony Lloyd

21 minutes
Meg Parnaby and John McIntyre

32 minutes
Kevin Grellet and Peter Mayo.

How the Race Unfolded.
As was the case last year, the day was sunny and mild, with only a light breeze, which made for great racing conditions.

The two limit riders Peter Mayo and Kevin Grellet headed off from the 32 minute mark, and were making good time the first time onto the Wimmera highway after 18km. They were only slightly under their handicapped schedule to this point, averaging 28.38kph, ahead of the second limit riders Meg Parnaby and John McIntyre, who were right on their handicapped time averaging 30.71kph to this point. Next through were the second scratch riders, who were down a bit at this point, averaging 34.65kph, ahead of scratch who were slightly up at 38.85kph.

On the second lap, back to the highway at 44.3km, the limit pair had maintained their speed at 28.43kph and still had a good lead over the second limit pair, who had dropped off slightly to average 30.43kph. Towards the end of the first lap, Irvine had punctured, and the remaining second scratch pair of Lloyd and Heard were struggling on, only to be caught half way between Mitre and the highway on the second lap. The now combined back two bunches had slowed a little to 38.26kph by the time they reached the highway.

At the bottom of the climb, after 50.3km, the limit pair of Mayo and Grellet had only slowed a little to average 28.2kph and had a lead of 4 minutes over the second limit pair of Parnaby and McIntyre, who had slowed as well to average 30.18kph. Scratch was still over six minutes down at this point, having averaged 36.87kph to the bottom of the climb.

The battle up the climb saw riders dropping off, but Kevin Grellet put in a strong ride for his first time up the mount, and managed to hold off the chasing riders to win by 2 minutes from scratch rider Peter Wemyss, who caught second limit rider Meg Parnaby in the final few hundred metres (as always seems to be the case!). Parnaby finished 9 seconds later to take out third. Peter Mayo was fourth, a further 34 seconds behind.

A special thanks to Andy Reid for helping out on the day.

Race Results
1st Kevin Grellet
2nd Peter Wemyss
3rd Meg Parnaby
4th Peter Mayo

Winners Time
Kevin Grellet - 2 hour 05 minutes 8 seconds
Average speed of 26.27kph

Fastest Time
Peter Wemyss - 1 hour 34 minutes 2 seconds
Average speed of 34.96kph

Weather Conditions
Light south easterly.