Race report by Brendan
Well I guess I will start with the trip down, what a terrible day to be driving anywhere, pouring rain, gale force winds with a hint of hail. I considered turning around many times but about half way to Pinjarra there was a Truck crash or fire and the road was blocked and we were forced to turn around and back come the thought of just keep driving back to Perth. But knowing I need the race miles in the legs for Grafton in 4 weeks we went the backway with 50 other cars and lost a good half hour but still arrived in plenty of time.

After the necessary registering and catching up with a few people I haven’t seen in a while I made my way back to the car to set up the bike in the rain, did I mention the wind?? You can see the tone of the day really.. I initially put on my deep dish wheels but during my warm up I decided against it and changed back to my shallow ones. With most groups going off to torrential rain and hail we were lucky I guess as it wasn’t raining when we set off but the road was that wet it didn’t really matter. As I was second scratch (second last to go) with a couple of Plan B riders and Brookes McMurdo ones plus others I knew it would be a tough ask to hold off the scratch group let alone get up for a win as the first few groups had over half an hour head start…

We set a furious pace and on the first hill I immediately found out the legs didn’t want to play (something to do with the 900kms in the last 9 days training for Grafton) I struggled through for turns with the group and missing a few but I noticed I wasn’t the only one. Russel Brookes (Who went on later to win) was on a mission and strong as and drove us over the hills at over 40 ave which taking in the huge side winds and rain gives you the idea… Within 20kms we had someone giving us time checks behind and front and we were gaining fast on the next 2 groups and actually holding off the scratch group so I tried my best to recover between smashing through turns with everyone and just hoped my legs would come good.

By the first turn towards Donnybrook we only had a minute to catch 3rd scratch group but they had also caught there front group making a rather large group and with some strong regular ATTA riders in there our task was becoming harder, for the next 10 odd kms we had only closed down another 10 odd seconds and Donnybrook was fast approaching and driving into the head wind we all dug deep knowing that if we could just catch them we could hold off the scratch group. By the turn around in Donnybrook we had approx 30secs to make up and could see our prey but with a short few kms of a tail wind the big group were on a mission to hold us all off. We basically sprinted full gas out of Donnybrook with a tail wind hit the turn left and back into the side winds and finally caught them shortly after.

Once caught they pretty much sat up with only a couple interested in working so Russell Brookes smashed an attack with Jordon (plan B) chasing and I knew it was the break not to let go but just didn’t have the speed to bridge the gap so settled in with the group encouraging others to work so we could catch them back up, but with only a few and many just sitting on it was doomed so once I recovered I surged quite a few times to offload as many as possible prior to the hills on the return to Collie. Scratch caught us just prior to the mentioned hills but weren’t doing a high speed and pretty much guessed Russel and Jordon would probably catch the front groups and go on to win (which they did just).

On the main hill, well the one the hurts the most pretty much sorted everyone out and my legs said no more and the scratch group rode off in the distance and I got together with a couple of people and we worked solidly together all the way home to be about 4 mins behind the winner and scratch getting to within a minute of Russell’s winning time. We had a few front guys sitting on us on the way home for 10 odd kms and then proceeded to try to out sprint us for like 25th spot after we had dragged them through the winds, talk about disrespectful! So after we crossed the line I ensured I told them my thoughts 🙂

So a very tough day out but glad to have done what I did with what I had off a very hard mark, full credit to the winner for a strong ride who proved he was the strongest on one of the hardest day of racing I have done in years.
The other SPR riders were within a chance up to the closing kms when our group and scratch caught most of them with Stu and Nicole riding strongly on the day too. My mate from Kal Ryan rode the whole race in a rain jacket and from the start picture you can see why….