The race was won in a sprint finish between five riders where Kia Goldman (Illawarra CC) took the win by two lengths from Michael Berriman (Access Storage), Scott Wallace (Illawarra CC), Curtis Trkulja (Illawarra CC) and Ben Wallis (Access).

Rob Rix was sixth rider to finish and in a solo position with Mark Williams (Access) leading the first of the back markers across the line for seventh.

Ben Rolfe, Amelia Trkulja, Dean Jackson, Shane Wood and Bill Stahlhut rounded out the top dozen riders across the line.

The race had started with two riders on the scratch handicap, giving away starts of up to 25 minutes across seven groups of riders.

These two riders from the scratch mark were Aaron Coghlan (Access) and Cameron Judson (Harlequin Wheelers).

Five minutes ahead was Williams, Rolfe, Wood, Rod Child (Illawarra), Dan Wells and Jade Colligan.

Both these groups raced against each other for the full distance but they failed to bring the nine and 11-minute bunches back to them as well as finishing separately at the finish following a lot of hard work. The top six placegetters were all from these nine and 11-minute bunches.

The scratch duo were still chasing from the back of the field going into the final 20 kilometres with Mark Bagnall as the lone race leader still nine minutes ahead.

Some riders improved position over the closing stages while others dropped away and Coghlan and Judson finished in 17th and 18th positions with the fastest time of the day going to Coghlan in one hour, 22 minutes and 12 seconds.

The Nowra Velo has a short recess from racing over the remainder of April and racing will resume with a 42-kilometre handicap for the third round of the 2019 Optus series on May 5.