One of the fastest and most aggressive events ever seen on the Nowra Velo Club's criterium program was raced on Albatross Aviation Tech Park on Sunday morning.
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Jordan Ross (Illawarra CC) won the race ahead of a quality A grade field that burst into action within minutes of the start.
Aaron Coghlan started the attacks after just minutes of the start signal. Coghlan raced ahead to a 50m lead and the field scrambled for positions as the chase was taken up.
That pattern continued with Matt Thompson (Queensland) sprinting ahead for a short time and Ross leading the chase.
At half distance the field had split apart with five riders in the lead group. These were Ross, Coghlan, Thompson, Levi Johns and Merrick Law (Illawarra CC).
The pace at the front was fast and leading the chase group and holding at 100m were Daniel Wells, Jade Colligan and Shane Wood.
Through the final lap Ross took control and raced into the finish straight in the lead position, sprinting away to the line. Johns chased all the way to finish second with Thompson, Coghlan and Law next over the line in that order.
Colligan was sixth ahead of Wells, Wood, Michael Berriman and Richard Vitiello.
Nick Johns led the B grade field into the bell lap after 30-plus minutes of racing but he was swamped up the back straight and seven riders were together into the finish.
Mark Williams cut lose with a withering sprint finish to take this event by four lengths from Gavin Nethery, Brendan Sears (Illawarra CC), Jason Spence, Aaron Lauder, Tony Kuipers, Nick Johns and Ben Wallis following in.
The C grade event featured two newcomers to criterium racing and they handled the circuit well enough to be in the lead bunch for the finish.
Mark Thirlwall and Todd Norbury had some coaching on the circuit before racing commenced and followed the leaders until they were familiar with the action.
Thirlwall was at the front and driving the pace into the final two laps but the speed and agility of track star Adrian McMillan was evident as he raced into the finish straight with a 50m lead that he held to the line.
Brendon Miller was second, just a length ahead of Brad Oaten. Next to finish was Jose Pereira, Norbury, Ian Kielly, Michael Thompson, Thirlwall, Mark Klein and Kon Kinnas.
Mark Robbins staged a near race-long solo breakaway in the D grade event only to be run down in the final lap.
Robbins had skipped off the front of the field before half distance and was out to a 200m lead when the chase was organised as the laps counted down.
Into the final two laps the chase was being led by Barry Wells along with Steve Daley, Liam Wallis and Matt Grootenboer. They were close to catching but not quite there when Wells surged ahead and raced past Robbins and up the straight to a clear win.
Robbins hung on for second with Daley third ahead of Wallis, Grootenboer. Graham Johns, Zara Jobson and Jamie Overton.
The Nowra Velo Club returns to road racing next weekend with a 54km handicap on Sunday, starting from Wugan Street at 8.30am.
The Hanlon Windows team are the rostered officials and traffic controllers.
