Troy won the Optus Nowra Velo Club’s Jones Memorial handicap on a wind swept Braidwood Road course on Sunday while Thompson won the Aces scratch race at the Southern Region Interclub event at Oakdale on Saturday afternoon.

These two riders were the scratch men for Sunday’s 53 kilometre Jones memorial road race where the tough conditions were to their favour.

Troy and Thompson combined well and chased through to the front of the race in 36 kilometres after giving starts of up to 23 minutes over the field.

With the wind playing havoc with most of the field these scratch riders were relentless in their chase.

Across a three minute gap were Damian Mason, Andrew Burrows (SU Velo), Tim O’Shea (Illawarra CC), Jade Colligan and Aaron Coghlan.

The next group ahead contained Paul Mackie, Aaron Lauder, Godfrey Green, Steve Gendek and Ian Kielly. Then there was a four minute gap to Gavin Nethery, Phil Jones, Tim Devlin, Gary Bryce, Rob Pickard and Frank Neri.

Lynne Vaughan, Mick Thompson, Hubert Driehuis, Steve Daley, Mel Kilby and, Kate Darke had another three minutes advantage with Alice Lauder right out the front of the field.

Coghlan was off with a mechanical and as the others of his group were added to the backmarkers chase and the front of the field was reeled in.

A dozen riders were in the lead group for the last 16 kilometres through blustery cross winds back to the finish.

Other groups and individuals were spread out behind and trying to limit their losses.

The leaders swung into the finish and Troy was hitting out for the finish line with Thompson chasing hard.

Troy crossed over the line with a length and a half to spare and Thompson held a similar margin over third placed Aaron Lauder.

There was a three second gap to fourth placed Burrows ahead of Godfrey Green, Tim O’Shea, Jade Colligan and Rob Pickard. Just seconds later Paul Mackie, Ian Kielly, Damian Mason and Lynne Vaughan crossed the line.

A few minutes later Tim Devlin led Gary Bryce, Mel Kilby, Steve Daley, Hubert Driehuis and Michael Thompson came in, followed by Aaron Coghlan, Frank Neri and Phil Jones.

Troy had also won the Nowra Velo Club’s Jack Hartnett Memorial road race just six weeks ago.

Thompson and Coghlan were starters in the A grade 60 kilometre event in the Oakdale interclub program where riders from Goulburn, Illawarra, Macarthur and Southern Highlands swelled this grade.

The NVC riders avoided two crashes and were in the lead group heading over the final five kilometres.

Thompson covered an attacking move at this point and found he had a gap of 100 metres over the field. Rather than hesitate, Thompson hit a bigger gear and charged for the finish where he crossed over with a seven second margin over the sprinting bunch.

Coghlan finished in this group and just inside the top 10 finishers.

Godfrey Green and Ian Kielly were unplaced in B grade, Phil Jones finished in the lead group in C grade while Steve Daley picked up fifth and the last paid position in D grade at this Interclub program.

The Nowra Velo Club returns to criterium racing next Sunday with a four event program on the Albatross Aviation Tech Park circuit.

Racing starts at 9 am where the Optus Nowra team are the duty officials.