Matt Illingworth once again took custody of the Tom Norris trophy; for the next twelve months. Before Matt powered through the finish for the eighth time, Tom Barratt had occupied the hot seat for forty-six minutes. There weren't too many finishers after Matt to displace Tom too far down the list: Stu Helm, Colin Rose and Troy Coulthard. There is some pretty serious TT talent in that bunch and it's great to see Troy posting PBs again: Bibra Lake and today, the first since last winter.

The conditions were not ideal: the first of the morning showers arrived before the first rider took off. There wasn't much of a breeze to begin with but it grew,- driving the showers ahead of itself. Once again PBs were well earned and the shorter than usual list certainly was a reflection of the fairly tough conditions: 'testing'! But it was interesting that half of those on the PBs list were women and heading the list, Allison Hass, on her way to her first '160' in a couple of weeks time. Mel Robinson was only a few places further down the PB list making a come-back from injury and taking the Women's Silver medal only just over a minute behind Renee Baker. Mel seems to be acquiring a bit of a taste for TTing.

Lorraine handed over the starter's watch to Dale Groves today and fed riders through to him before going out on course wearing her steward's hat. Byron Geneve had already done a number of laps out there keeping riders 'honest'. Also lurking on the finish line Sue Challen gave meaningful assistance with the back-up timing having rejected the idea of riding 80km in clogs because she left her proper riding shoes at home. Across the road Siobhan Healy kept traffic orderly around the entrance driveway to the Community Centre where Carolyn Equid and Terri Usher manned the registration desk. Troy had been there before sunrise (well, before the sky turned from black to grey), setting things up and the mob from WARP arrived sometime later to take charge of the two major intersections on the course. Bruce Rollerson and Matt Usher were also out there looking after riders' welfare. Jeff U had, as usual co-ordinated the team before he rode eight laps himself and then switched back to helper mode and packing up. Thank you all once again.