C Grade- by Jason

My first ever cycling race, now I’ve raced before, motocross many years ago and motorcycle road racing in the WA state championships for the past couple of years. So I’m not new when it comes to racing of sorts. But like I said this would be my first ever cycle race. I had no idea what to expect- so on Saturday morning, after the SPR ride, myself and Matt did a little recon mission and drove up to check out the track. The idea was to ride the circuit to get a ‘better’ idea of what to expect. Not really knowing what to expect we got about 5 kms around and said to each other that maybe we should of done a lap in the car instead, no turning back now. By the time we finished the lap we nearly passed out in the back of the van, damn it was hot. We cooled off on the way home in a mates swimming pool.

Sunday morning I woke early and sorted myself out some breakfast and before I knew it Matt and Hanna where at my house, now i’m not sure but I think this is where the nerves really kicked in. We finished loading the van and off we went with thoughts of ‘why the hell am I doing this?’ Too late to turn back now.

We arrived at the course and set ourselves up opposite the SPR tent. Lorraine had excelled her self and sorted out drinks and food. The next hour seemed to go too quickly. Before I knew it we where off. ( I should mention though- the support vehicle for C grade was piloted by Hanna with only two sets of wheels in the back- mine and Matts, thought there would have been a few more- Thanks to Hanna and the other girl that volunteered- I never caught her name sorry)
Anyway back to it- We started off up the hill and all seemed to be good, the speed was steady and I was feeling good. The first lap saw a few attacks but nothing that was going to leave us behind. I saw a couple of SPR guys and noticed Stu on the front driving up the pace, I was hoping that maybe we could take it easy for the first couple of laps and hit it hard on the last. NOPE- we where off, the attacks seemed to stretch the group out a bit. Not too sure how much as I was trying to keep myself in the forward part. These attacks drove the pace up faster and faster. There was one breakaway that no one wanted to bridge. So off I went, it was harder than I thought, but finally made it across, I looked back and saw that no one else had bothered to come across, no wonder there was no one helping me. This left about 6 of us in the breakaway group which didn’t last long- there was a young guy that pulled away on the front of us and we never saw him again. Not sure who he was but I believe he got disqualified for riding in a class that he shouldn’t of. He does deserve some credit, he was a machine that powered alone for for one and a half laps, and was on the front for the whole race and the instigator of all the attacks.

Back to us- with the young rider gone into the distance, it left 5 of us, which soon turned to 3. Two managed to pull away and just seemed to be out of reach for the remainder of the race. The three of us that rode together where all from SPR. I called for short turns on the front to try and catch the two other guys that just seemed to be slightly out of reach. They must of sensed the 3 of us closing in and upped the pace. For the next one and a half laps the 3 of us worked well together. The final lap I could tell we where finding it hard, the pace dropped as the wind picked up. But the 3 of us soldiered on, Matt and Stu where troopers and worked hard. We decided that we would all go across the line together. It was a great effort and was very surprised to hear my name called for 3rd place. Stu and Matt deserved 3rd just as much as myself, so I split the prize money between us.

Split Time Distance Avg Speed Max Speed Avg HR Max HR
1 00:33:34 20.72 37.0 60.0 166 187
2 00:33:53 20.74 36.7 64.3 179 191
3 00:36:09 20.70 34.3 61.8 174 187
Summary 01:44:30 62.42 35.8 64.3 173 191

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