It’ll be OK on the day.

And it was too. The Beverley 2019 has been an interesting lead up. Lots of variables are expected, and pretty well planned after a few years in practice.

This year has been a process of handover. After three years as a near one-Mo-show, this year was approached with the aim of handing on the experience and knowledge to others in the Club.

Running The Beverley day entails a volunteer group – at Registration managing any changes, misses or requests from racers; volunteers to build, manage and pull down the start/finish area and timing systems; a convoy of lead and follow car drivers with radio communication and coordinating with Commissaires and external bodies, like Traffic Management.

Some things crop up and just get managed on the fly and no one notices. It’s these issues in that no one is aware of that make the directing of The Beverley rewarding. Last year, when we expected to have Stop/Slow bats available for the Start/Finish area – they didn’t show up. Some quick thinking, and one race convoy vehicle hightailed it out to our traffic managers to borrow a set and we were sorted. 12 minutes is all it took. No one outside of the Event Staff even noticed and on we went with the day.

This year was an unavoidable pot hole at the 50km mark that appeared days before race day. Spanning half the road width and several inches of deep wet sand there was risk involved. We talked it up at rider briefing, and again on the start line, the area was spray painted pink, attended by Event Staff (thanks Fi for waving arms furiously!) and it was safely navigated around by the whole field. Sorted. Smooth as…..

Our Volunteers for your Beverley 2019 were:

Back at Base:	Race Convoy:
Steve Burns	David Menarry
Nick Vinson	Adam Ralph
Selina Hanson	Fiona Williams
Megan Fyfield	Dan Harvey
Mike Morris	Marcel Willimann
Kathryn Dines	Pete Mah
Charles Roche	Andrew Williams
Ingrid Roche
Neil Gerace

Thank you, Crew.

The feedback from our Chief Commissaire and racers really hits home why we do this. “Favourite race of the year”, “best managed race on the calendar”. The weekend must be fun. There must be a good time had, or why would we bother? There are always things we can improve, and there is a hit-and-miss aspect to things we do, no doubt. But to have this sort of message come back indicates we are generally on the right track. May we be even better in future.

There are a number of other thank you’s that need to be given:

• David Menarry and Steve Burns have stepped up to run with The Beverley Race Director responsibilities
• Cycling Australia Commissaires Ken, Richard and Gary – our WA Commissaires are the BEST
• Beverley Shire President Dee Wridgeway, and the Shire Councils of Beverley, York and Northam
• Local Police Commands of Beverley and York
• Clint and Co from Peel District CC ran the timing system, Midland CC supplied radios and equipment, WestCycle provided sanctioning and equipment
• Toby Hodgson – Mr Vesparazzi. The mind, spirit and soul behind The Beverley Heroic weekend.

WA club run race events, in general, have become much more challenging to host over the years since we started this. Participation numbers at club run events have suffered enormously. So a wholehearted thank all of those racers and volunteers that came out to make The Beverley happen this year. SPR racers – first timers AND all-the-timers. Midland CC who brought a huge contingent along,  those in Race Team colours holding memberships across a range of clubs – Dome Coffees Cycling Team, Chaotic Energy (with a bit of SPR mixed kit!), King KOM, Cove Legal, VeloFit to name a few. The event is hosted FOR you and happens BECAUSE of you.

Thanks for coming out to The Beverley and we hope to see you all and MORE next year.