Opening round of Nowra Velo Club's Optus Team Series produces close finishes

Four grades of scratch races were held on the Braidwood Road course, starting from the Albatross Aviation Technology Park and the four race winners were Merrick Law (A grade), Josh Henry (B grade), Trent Wiseman (C grade) and Cameron Harrison (D grade).

Access Storage took the team win for this first round of the 2022 series, led by wins from Henry and Wiseman.

This team also featured strongly in other podium positions.

Ben Wallis placed third in A grade; Tony Kuipers was second in B grade with Steve Gendek also gathering high points.

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Following Wiseman in C grade were other Access riders Bill Stahlhut, Doug Gray and Dean Byrne.

Jo Chalain was the top placegetter for Access in D grade.

Defending teams' champions, Coffeeliscious placed second on the day by a very narrow margin from Hanlon Windows.

While both A grade and C grade results were decided in bunch sprint finishes, the other grades were won by bold moves and solo breakaways.

Law (Hanlon) won A grade by a length from Mark Astley (Coffeeliscious) and Wallis (Access), followed by Mark Williams (Hanlon) and Alex Onus (NVC).

Wiseman (Access) outstripped Geoff Lockhart (Hanlon) in C grade with a close finish for third which went to Zac Peters from Bill Stahlhut (Access).

Then followed Doug Gray (Access), Dean Byrne (Access), Chris Harrison (Coffeeliscious), and Aaron Lauder (Hanlon).

Josh Henry's B grade win followed a bold move by him and Godfrey Green (Coffeeliscious) in the first 10 kilometres of the 42 kilometre race.

Green dropped back to the chase bunch but Henry (Access) persisted and hung on to win by 12 seconds.

Kuipers took the bunch sprint for second ahead of Scott Wallace (Illawarra CC), Brad Oaten, Steve Gendek (Access), Green, Phil Rice (Coffeeliscious), Jason Spence (Hanlon) and Jade Colligan.

Cameron Harrison had almost a minute and a half margin in his D grade win.

Harrison and Ethan Astley (Coffeeliscious) had rode away from the D grade field after 30 kilometres.

Then Harrison raced solo to the finish.

Astley finished second with Jo Chalain (Access) and Kate Darke (Coffeeliscious) took the next two positions, ahead of Jamie Overton (Hanlon), Pat McGill (Hanlon) and Matt Grootenboer (Access).

The Nowra Velo Club returns to criterium racing next weekend at the Albatross Aviation Technology Park.

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