Race Report

… so it goes. What a difference a week makes! Today it was a total contrast to last Monday and we saw top performances to go with what were pretty good conditions.

The first FOUR women riders all flew faster than the old benchmark for the course and, indeed, the medal winners each had a taste of the new record: Steff was the first to savour it—for a bit over five minutes—before Kirsty Turner claimed it as hers. She held it for seventeen and a half minutes before Rachael zipped through the finish to settle the matter. In the meantime Emily had also bettered the old mark but the first two had already been more savage with it. The blokes too made for a very interesting finish: Lee Bolden, even with a restart towards mid-field, had sat on top of the listings for quite a while but Stu Helm finally unseated him and then Matt Burton stormed home. That sorted the Gold and Silver medals, it turned out, but Bronze was still not settled and passed from Lee to Hayden James and finally Joseph Laurendi. The Masters rankings also went through a few changes with Lee again atop, to be displaced by Chris (poster-boy) Glasby, then Steve Knight and, finally, pushed one place further down by Matt Burton. The three medallists—Matt, Steve and Chris all rode PBs to do it.
Josh Commons, predictably, had his way with the 3-lapper but Sally Churchill collected another PB to match that from Champion Lakes, under very different conditions, last week.

There were a few nice PBs to list: another first for the girls with Luba on top of today's list; Neil McDougall mightn't have a medal to show for his trip to Wandi but continued adding to his collection of PBs; it was nice to see Greg Perry back amongst it and we could go on right down the list—great results all of them.

And once more—all riders were well served by a fine bunch of helpers: Heather Connan again at the rego desk; Lachlan at the Wandi Drive turn; John Healy easily settled into the starter role with Lorraine showing the way for the first few starters; Kyla was our caller again and, across the road, Sabine managed the entrance/exit of the Community Centre; John Gilbertson looked after the busy roundabout on Lyon Road where Max Constanduros took care of the turn back onto De Haer; Iain and Lorraine MacLennan had set up and, later packed down most of the course signage while the Wandi/Lyon junction was managed by the QTM pros. Thank you, Alison for the medal presentations and, of course, Amos for a fine cup of tea!