Mark Williams has moved to the lead in the Nowra Velo Club’s Optus points series after two wins in the first two rounds of the 2017 competition.
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Williams won last Sunday’s Optus series handicap on Braidwood Road in a bunch sprint finish. Williams (BVH/Coffeeliscious) crossed the line a length ahead of Nathan Crump (Access Storage) with a further two lengths back to Andrew Docking (Parramatta CC) and Phil Rice (Access).
Richard Vitiello (BaiMed Physio) was fifth and was followed by the fastest rider of the race, Adam Rourke (BVH/Coffeeliscious).
Geoff Lockhart (BVH/Coffeeliscious) was seventh, followed by Jean Paul Brando Carre (Access), Henry Wakeford (BaiMed), Scott Wallace (Illawarra CC), Steve Crossman (BaiMed), Tim Devlin (BaiMed), Steve Gendek (BVH/Coffeeliscious), Mark Astley (Access), Hubert Driehuis (Access) and Michael Thompson (BVH/Coffeeliscious) to make up the front group of riders at the end of this race.
Williams had previously won the B grade criterium that was included in the first round of the 2017 Optus series and sits comfortably on 60 individual points.
Vitiello is second with 51 points ahead of Driehuis (41), Astley (37), Gendek (33) and Rice (32).
Pure weight of numbers gave the Access team a win in the team section of this series by a narrow margin over BVH/Coffeeliscious and the Storage team now have a 20-point lead over BaiMed Physio with BVH/Coffeeliscious and Hanlon Windows all closely grouped.
Mark Fenner was the disadvantaged rider in this event being the solo scratch rider. Fenner gave away starts of up to 11 minutes and 30 seconds to the front of the field and had a three-rider group 90 seconds ahead. This was indicative of Fenner’s time trialing ability but Rourke, Astley and Crossman were going to test that out.
This trio started hard and combined well to cross their immediate gap to Williams, Crump, Brando Carre and Vitiello. With these combinations working together the front of the race was rolled in with 10 kilometres remaining. Many riders were left behind in the race to the line.
Adam Rourke came away with the fastest time after riding over the course in one hour, two minutes and seconds which was an outstanding performance for a masters division five rider.
The Nowra Velo Club will hold the first of the 2017 club championships next Sunday with the mountain championships to be held on Woodhill Mountain.
