THE morning rain cleared in time for the racing to get under way in the Optus Nowra Velo Club’s criteriums at the Albatross Aviation Tech Park on Sunday, where Tim O’Shea, Brendon Miller and Mel Kilby were all race winners.
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The Tech Park is a tricky circuit when wet, where racing is held on an 800 metre lap but it had dried out enough for division three to get under way, with a small but aggressive field.
Mel Kilby had attacked at halfway but failed to shake anybody off her tail and then led through the final corner, to hold off the challenge from Hubert Driehuis to take the win, with Rod Pierce in third position.
This was Kilby’s second successive win on this circuit.
Division two was a fast race with Paul Nancekivell constantly on the attack and stretching the field through the four corners of the circuit.
Gary Bryce, Brendon Miller, Phil Jones, Tim Devlin and Dean Kelly (Illawarra CC) all defended their positions and chased down the attacks while Dave Gray and Rob Pickard clung on at the back of the bunch.
Miller reasoned that the rider who was the boldest through the final still damp corner could be the winner and put himself into that position but Gray swept past and was through first.
Miller was close and kicked harder up the finish straight to race past Gray for a two length clear margin over the line.
Jones raced into third position ahead of Nancekivell, Bryce, Kelly, Devlin and Pickard.
Division one was under way for over half an hour of racing and after a conservative first two laps, the pace went up each lap, as riders were almost at sprinting speed out of the corners.
Angus Burrell (SU Velo), Paul Mackie and Damian Mason were all driving the pace at the front and stringing out the field.
Aaron Lauder had crashed in his warm up and was nursing an injured wrist as he held his position in the line.
Jade Colligan was displaying her improvement over the last month with an attack and a break that led the field at a high speed for over two laps.
Tim O’Shea launched his move as the field came back together and then began to break up.
O’Shea raced out to a 10 second lead and Mason, Burrell and Colligan tried to close it down while Mark Astley, Lauder and Gavin Nethery drifted off the back of the chase.
O’Shea held onto that slender lead and raced into the finish for a worthy win.
Mason led the chase bunch through the final corner where Burrell and Colligan launched their sprint for the line from that lead.
Burrell and Colligan raced side by side over the final 150 metres to the line where Colligan was there with just centimetres as a margin.
Mason held on for fourth ahead of Mackie, Steve Gendek and Ian Kielly.
Astley, Nethery and Lauder followed in.
The Optus Nowra Velo Club have no racing next weekend where club members will take advantage of the break to get some valuable kilometres in their legs for the race towards the second half of the season.
Racing returns with round seven of the Ultimate Challenge on Sunday, August 16, where the event will be an individual time trial on the Braidwood Road course starting at 9am.
The Watts Factory/FTP Training team will be the rostered officials for this event.