It was a bit of a last minute decision to head down to this race but I’m glad I did.  I’ve never raced with PDCC before and the circuit was new to me also.  Also said hello to Chaderotti who was entered in his first road race in C-Grade (his own report of C-Grade race can be found here.)

I rocked up and discovered fellow South Perth Rouleurs members Dan (Hughes-D’Arth) & Josh(Camp) getting sorted.  We’d all been entered in B grade.  I was happy with this – I’d done my research and checked out what the PDCC races last year were averaging.  A-grade was zooming round the courses at about a 38-40kph clip, B-grade usually between 35-37kph with C grade managing 32-33kph.  I felt I was in the right company then.  6 laps of a course just shy of 11km.

We were lined up in in 2 columns for the start with myself at the head of one of them.  After getting the nod our field of 11 headed off.  The guy next to me had some trouble clipping in and so when I had a look back 500m into the race I’d pulled out a gap of 80-100m.  I wasn’t about break solo for 65km so I sat up and cruised along.  And kept cruising….   Finally about halfway round the bunch pulled up behind me.  Pfft.  Towards the end of the 1st lap Dan and another guy had created a gap of about 150m.  Coming into the finishing area Josh went to bridge but sat up as soon as the bunch was with him.  Which was my cue to have a dig.  I made it across to the twosome and started taking turns.  The 3rd guy didn’t last long and it was 2 SPR with a gap on the bunch.  An ideal situation to be in – but perhaps not this far out from the finish.  It was only the 2nd lap.  We soft-pedalled and drifted back to the pack.

The peleton was certainly not keen to push things along.  A roll of sorts was in place but whenever I’d roll off it was near impossible to get others to come thru despite swerving all the road.  Very frustrating.  Maverick’s manoeuvre from Top Gun where he dumps the air brakes and goes backwards entered my mind on more than one occasion…  And there were 2 wiley old sods that were not engaging with the pack at all.

I think it was somewhere into the third lap that Daniel was again away with another bloke.  They had a good lead and once again the bunch wasn’t interested.  Myself and Josh weren’t pulling hard and only taking short turns and no-one else wanted to take the reigns.  This is how things remained until the 5th lap when Dan was pulled back (his breakaway partner had pulled out with a flat).

The 6th and final lap came about the pack was together except for one who had been dropped and the guy who had a flat.  Josh indicated he was waiting for the sprint and I assumed Dan couldn’t have too many matches left after his earlier break (How wrong I was!).  On this final lap I had a few digs.  Before the first corner I had a dash before slowing up on the small incline.  Another hit-out at the end of the back straight for kicks.  I was hoping it would be anyone but Dan & Josh doing the chasing but wasn’t about to look behind.  With any luck this would deaden the legs of the others leaving Josh to do his thing at the end.  Josh asked me more than once how much I had left and everytime I’d reply “Not much” before taking off!  (I’m still figuring out how the legs will respond to the pointy end of a race…)  I put in another effort at the dogs leg before the last corner then latching on when the bunch caught up.  Just enough time for a quick breather before the final corner and the bunch kick.

And kick they did.  Josh was close to getting boxed in and ended up touching wheels with the eventual third place rider.  Did well to stay up and then powered on to the finish,… except somehow Dan had recovered from his earlier efforts and nudged him into 2nd!  I managed 7th across the line.  The bunch was lucky not to clean up (be cleaned up?) by a car doing a 3-point turn several metres past the finish line.

Good race from the SPR boys who, despite some negative racing from other participants, scored the one two.  Credit to the couple of riders who did their share, unfortunately we weren’t able to shake 2 other riders, one of which took a few turns and the other who did exactly zero.  I enjoyed being a part of the race rather than just trying to hang on.

I look forward to Josh & Dan’s take on the race.

Official results can be found here.

My Garmin details of the race can be found here.

Next race is at Wandi on Saturday 1st May @ 14:00.  $10 entry.  All you who were in C grade for the Peter Clark Memorial the other week would fit right in in B-Grade at PDCC.

Cheers,

Dave