MICHELLE Harris led Bomaderry Vet Hospital/Coffeeliscious to a team win in the MIEngineers 2014 Teams Challenge events on the Flinders circuit last Sunday.
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While Harris won D grade, second place finishes to Scott Barrett in B Grade and second and third in C grade with Gary Bryce and Jose Pereira also boosted the BVH/Coffeeliscious team points.
Hanlon Windows placed second on the program and these points came mainly from Damian Mason’s A grade win and Cullity’s D grade second.
Matt Clark and Mark Astley added more points to Hanlons in B grade.
Henry Wakeford won the C grade event for East Coast Ultimate but their next best finishing positions were fourths with McSwiney and Miller.
This team finished one point behind TLE with their leading rider Aaron Coghlan third in A grade.
The A/B combined event over an hour remained intact until the mid way Watts Factory sprint where Coghlan took top points from Paul Mackie (East Coast Ultimate).
Phil Jones, Matt Clark and Mark Astley picked up sprint points for B grade.
The race exploded after the sprint and riders finished in one and twos for the result.
Mason was the length of the straight clear of Mackie, while Coghlan placed third ahead of Jones, Jade Colligan and a sprint finish to Barrett ahead of Clark, Astley and Dion Carter (TLE).
A break went early in the C grade 50 minute event as Gary Bryce and Henry Wakeford raced clear.
They had team mates in the bunch who foiled the chase and they went farther away.
Wakeford took the Watts Factory mid race sprint from Bryce while Pereira took the bunch kick for third.
Wakeford broke clear in the last lap to win from breakaway companion Bryce and then Pereira did it again with third from Miller, Nancekivell (BVH/Coffeeliscious), Mark Robbins (TLE), Phil Rice (East Coast Ultimate), Geoff Lockhart (NVC), Frank Neri (BVH) and Michael Thompson (Hanlons).
Harris rode a dominating D grade race to break that field up in the 50 minute event.
Following the Watts Factory mid race sprint where Lawry Byrne (TLE Electrical) scored the top points over Harris, the Trim Street climb proved decisive and this field was spread out over a kilometre.
Harris went on to a lone lead with a strong chase coming from John Cullity (Hanlon Windows).
Cullity made contact with the lead with a lap to go but on the final surge to the line Harris cleared out again to a 100 metre clear win.
Riders finished individually over the line as Cullity was second followed by Byrne, Pat McSwiney (East Coast Ultimate) and then the bunch led by Bruce Jenkins (TLE), Greg Showell (Hanlons), Kim Waters (TLE), Rod Pierce (TLE), Brittanee Schinella (BVH/Coffeeliscious) and Libby Randall.
At the end of round five of the MIE series the Hanlon Windows team still holds an overall lead of 30 points from Optus.
BVH/Coffeeliscious have moved from the bottom of the team classification to third with a narrow lead over TLE and East Coast Ultimate.
The Optus Nowra Velo Club will not hold any official events over the Easter weekend but will return to Braidwood Road on April 27 for round six of the MIE 2014 team challenge series which will be a 53 kilometre handicap.
East Coast Ultimate will host this event.