Prior to the first event, during general warm up, an unfortunate event marred the evening. Two riders were brought down when a car representing the principal sponsor, a major car dealership, was allowed to cross the track in the path of a "train" of thirty odd riders. The two involved went for the infield with the others escaping behind the vehicle. Leongatha veteran Steven Flower was taken to the Austin Hospital for observation and favoured rider Troy Clarke, whilst relatively uninjured, found that the forks of his bike were folded back beyond the down tube. Within 40 minutes Clarke, the 1996 Austral winner, was watching his tyres being pumped after the Sansonetti family came to the rescue. Troy’s father Hilton had arranged for a new frame for his campaign at the upcoming national titles.
In short order the frame was rushed to the track and built up from the wreck. His efforts throughout the evening showed us all the level of his professionalism, he rode like ten men.
The heats yielded a final field of
Stephen Pate Scr Troy Clarke Scr Shane Kelly Scr Todd Wilksch 30 Hilton Clarke jnr 75 David Maltby 80 Luc Gilmore 90 Tim Decker 90 Ashley Harding 90 Joel Leonard 100 Gary Mueller 100 Scott Callow 105 Mark Robertson 110 Michael Gill 125 Adam Whightwick 130 Lee Godfrey 140 Brendan Sansonetti 140 Darren Allen 160 Glen Hutchinson 170 Marc Murphy 170 Ben Rowe 195 Hamish Taylor 210
In the final, the backmarkers quickly got together and set about their chase of their quarry. A huge two lap effort from Troy Clarke left the job to 4 time World Champion Shane Kelly who drove to the front in the bell lap with Stephen Pate firmly fixed in his draft. At the 200M mark Pate backed off Kelly slightly to blast away for a record fourth win. Second across the line was Tasmanian Luc Gilmore who adds this to his second in the Melbourne Cup on Wheels. Comeback rider, former Australian champion David Maltby was third.
A former World professional sprint champion, Pate has now surpassed the record he held jointly with Danny Day. Day’s victories came in 1977, 1986 and 1990 all from the scratch mark. Pate won in 1988 off scratch, 1991 from 10M BEHIND scratch and 1993 at 20M BEHIND scratch.
At 35 years of age "Patey" had set his sights on the record and his delight at achieving his gaol was obvious, his acknowledgment of his fellow backmarkers showed his genuine appreciation of their work. Pate, Clarke and Kelly travel to Perth Wednesday, their campaign at the national titles based on good form and the confidence that comes from victory.
Other A grade race results were:
Elimination: 1. Stephen Pate 2. Darren Young 3. Brent McCaig Pate backed off at 200M and did it again. Scratch race: 1. Darren Young 2. Ashley Sheard 3. Adrian Sansonetti A group of five slipped away at five laps to go. Keirin: 1. Shane Kelly 2. Troy Clarke 3. Stephen Pate Four heats yielded the strongest to do battle behind the motor bike. Kelly’s strength was awesome.
The McCartneys were able to keep Allan out of trouble on Friday's stage, then help him stay with the best when the decisive action came on Saturday. Team manager Sean Yates takes us through it:
"The climb to Genting Highlands was 26 kilometres in length. Serguei Ivanov from the TVM squad was out to try and win the race, and his team set a fierce tempo. Pretty soon it was down to just five riders: Ivanov, Lanfranchi and Nocentini from Mapei, Simensen of Agro Adler, and our own Allan Iacuone." Only Lanfranchi and Ivanov had started the day ahead of Iacuone overall, so he knew he had a great chance to improve on his tenth place.
"I managed to stay with Ivanov's group knowing that with each turn of the pedals I was leaving the other guys behind," explained the McCartney's Australian hero. "Ivanov just blew the whole thing apart, and then it was just a case of limiting my losses to the finish." Iacuone finished in 8th place on the stage as the remnants of an earlier break were hunted down by the big names on the climb. When the stage was over and an exhausted Iacuone tried to regain his breath at the top of the mountain, he was overjoyed to see that his heroics had carried him into third place overall, with Mapei's Paolo Lanfanchi taking over as new leader and Ivanov second.
"Fingers crossed!" said Sean Yates going into Sunday's city centre circuit race, but everything went to plan as the race finished in a bunch sprint and Iacuone clung to his place on the podium in Kuala Lumpur.
"It's been a fantastic team effort throughout," said Yates when the race had drawn to a colourful close in the capital. "Allan had an absolutely faultless tour, David McKenzie won a stage and always threatened in the sprints. Chris Newton, Matt Illingworth, Julian Winn and Julian Clark came straight here from the miserable British winter, but were never out of their depth in the racing. The team did everything I asked of it, and I'm very proud of all of them."
The women's race was a lot more fun for me. First thing making it fun was the aggressiveness, as Lisa Hunt(Lombardi) said, "It was a nice race...aggressive". Alura Emery had this to say, "It was fast for the first crit of the year. It was challe nging and I liked it". Team RECT with Nicole Freeman, Christy Ferguson and Odesa Gunn showed the most heart in this Valentine event. Odesa in her pursuit to give it her all off the front, crashed into a curb. She then popped back up andwas back in the race attacking one lap later. She gets the unlucky award of the weekend as she had a flat yesterday. Fortunately promoter Bob of Velo Promo also gave heart with a prime for a box Russel Stover chocolates in addition to 3 money primes. Wanting to practice the sprint that I have been working on this winter, I went for all of them. While no one else was interested, I actually won them all. As my confidence grew I also got in position for the finish but sprint specialist Nicole Freeman came by me like I was standing still after getting a perfect lead-out from her teammate Christy Ferguson. She was nice though and told me afterwards that it took effort. Happy Valentine's day to all of you!!! XOXOXOX
1. Nicole Freeman 2. Pam Schuster 3. Alexa Sourka 4. Trish McKay 5. Anna Hinkle 6. Aileen Loe 7. Alura Emery 8. Cynthia Mommsen 9. Belinda Heerwagen 10. Odessa Gunn Started: 30
B grade’s result came from a group of four who held a significant lead for the latter part of the race, former Sun Tour rider David Sturt was beaten in the desperate sprint by German visitor Thomas Campana of Cologne. Footscray’s Colin Morris was third with World RR silver medallist Liz Tadich riding with the Victorian Institute of Sport succumbing to the strength of her breakaway companions fourth.
The result in C grade was a remarkable demonstration of the old and the new, 16 year old state rep. Mark French stormed out of the bunch to easily take the victory from Matthew Young (another youngster). Veteran Tim Nuttal (late 40’s) was third with the 1974 Austral winner Ivan Collings (59) fourth.
Speedskater Simon Walker (17) had his first taste of cycling victory in D grade over Marlon Quinn, Walker’s father John was third with Blackburn’s Emma Phillips taking fourth. The strength of young Walker sees him promptly promoted to C grade, fourth in last years World 15Km point score speedskating title the lad is attempting to combine two Olympic sports looking to excel in both.
A grade: 1. Stephen Pate 2. Luke Weir 3. Brent McCaig 4. Robert Tighello Started: 54 B grade: 1. Thomas Campana 2. David Sturt 3. Colin Morris 4. Liz Tadich Started: 56 C grade: 1. Mark French 2. Matthew Young 3. Tim Nuttall 4. Ivan Collings Started: 46 D grade: 1. Simon Walker 2. Marlon Quinn 3. John Walker 4. Emma Philips Started: 26