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As Sydney's wet and humid weather threatened yet another Tuesday night's racing at Heffron Park, the skies finally cleared late afternoon to welcome another 90 strong field of riders for Round 8 of the Trek Bicycles Summer Criterium Series. With points in the series still evenly balanced between all three grades, the strong north easterly blowing down the finishing straight looked to be ideal conditions for the 24 riders in A grade to stamp their presence on the race and record their 1st overall win in 3 weeks.
It wasn't to be, as A grade lacked a few of its big motors and was simply too inconsistent to catch both B and C grade at the end of the 15 laps. The speed of Stewart Campbell and Jose Rodriguez down the front straight was more than countered by the rest of the peloton's unwillingness to work up the back straight.
The B grade bunch got off to a much slower start than in recent weeks (clearly the absence of the Saturn women's team) as the north easterly made it difficult for the bunch to settle into a rythym. With points in the Sprint King competition also evenly balanced, the top four contenders Peter Carscadden, Todd Sinclair, Dr Bob Hampshire and Adam Radcliff all set about lining themselves up for the sprint primes at 7, 5 and 3 laps to go, however it was Peter Carscadden's consistent three x 2nd places which gave him the slight edge over his rivals who all claimed a sprint prime each.
At 3 laps to go it was obvious that A grade were soon going to swallow up B grade, but with a 36 strong field, C grade still looked to have enough time on their side to have the overall points to themselves, denying A grade for another week.
An early 3 man break in C grade still had an almost length of the straight advantage on the main field at the bell and it was a convincng sprint finish from Sutherland rider, Scott Ford which gave him the win over his breakaway companions Chris Jenkins and Clive Hammerson (both Randwick Botany).
In the scramble for the two remaining places of 1st A and 1st B grade, it was Liam Kelly coming off Stewart 'Computer' Campbell to snatch the A grade win and 'big' John Sunde taking the B grade win.
Pictures courtesy of Robyn Francis/www.cyclingpics.com
Overall 1 Scott Ford (Sutherland) 2 Chris Jenkins (Randwick Botany) 3 Clive Hammerson (Randwick Botany) 4 Dave Watkinson (Manly) 5 John Buckton (Randwick Botany) 1st A Grade: Liam Kelly (SBR) 1st B Grade: John Sunde (St George) Trek Bikes Summer Series Pointscore 1 Anthony Spurgeon (A Grade) 14 pts 1 Charles Topfer (B Grade) 14 2 Peter Carscadden (B) 10 3 Steve Wooldridge (A) 7 3 Luke Picton (C Grade) 7 3 David Stewart (A) 7 3 Scott Ford C 7 4 Jose Rodriguez (A) 5 4 Liam Kelly (A) 5 4 Chris Jenkins C 5 5 Alan Bozunovic (C) 4 5 Mark Renshaw (A) 4 5 Nathan Russell (A) 4 5 Brent Jenkins (B) 4 6 Antonio Iannacito (B) 3 6 Warren Doyle (A) 3 6 Paul Duncan (B) 3 6 Clive Hammerson C 3 7 David Gowty (B) 2 7 John Sunde (B) 2 7 Dave Watkinson C 2 8 Campbell Kerr (A) 1 8 Brent Dawson (A) 1 8 Todd Sinclair (B) 1 8 Stewart Campbell (A) 1 8 John Buckton 1 A/B Grade Sprint King 1 Peter Carscadden (B) 39 pts 2 Todd Sinclair (B) 30 3 Bob Hampshire (B) 27 4 Brent Jenkins (B) 21 5 Adam Radford (B) 20 6 Antonio Iannacito (B) 12 6 Liam Kelly (A) 12 7 M Fleming (B) 11 8 Charles Topfer (B) 10 9 Anthony Spurgeon (A) 9 10 Steve Williams (A) 8 11 Matt Bazzano (B) 7 11 David Gowty (B) 7 12 Steve Wooldridge (A) 5 12 Stuart Dangerfield (A) 5 12 David Stewart (A) 5 13 John Sunde (B) 4 14 Wayne Anderson (A) 3 14 Jose Rodriguez (A) 3 14 Jono Davis (A) 3 14 Brian Appleyard (A) 3 15 David Harrigen (A) 2 16 David Johanson (B) 1 16 Mark Renshaw (A) 1 16 Paul Duncan (B) 1 16 Nathan Jones (B) 1 16 Warren Doyle (A) 1 16 John Kenny (B) 1 16 Stewart Campbell (A) 1 C Grade Pointscore 1 Clive Hammerson 17 pts 2 Craig Dempsey 14 3 Luke Picton 5 3 Justin Case 5 3 Paul Duncan 5 4 Alan Bozunovic 4 5 Chris Jenkins 3 5 Scott Ford 3 6 John Percy 1 6 Belinda Smith 1