This week’s race was a points race, where points are given for the first five riders across the line each lap of the 8.8km kilometre Serpentine circuit. The winner is the rider with most points at the end of the race. The specialised nature of the race and competing events saw smaller fields than usual in most grades.
The exception was B grade with a strong presence from the Arbitrage Women’s Racing team, there was a very large and strong field. With 25 riders sprinting every lap and with plenty of attacks and counter attacks between sprints, the best description was chaos. With 16 different riders scoring points. You needed to the strong and consistent to be successful. Craig James won with two firsts and a third, Peter Carlin was second with a 4 minor placings in the last four laps, and Paul Kirby was third overall, with strong performances on the last three laps.
A grade was a very different race with Nick Graham Dawson and Wade Longworth getting away and being pursued by Colin Rose and Peter Mills, Graham Dawson taking 7 of the 8 sprints to win comfortably from Longworth, with Rose edging out Mills for third.
C grade went to script for the first few laps, but the constant attacking, saw two of the grade better sprinters dropped and three day licence holder Tim Watson perform well over all six laps to take victory from Peter Clarke, with Eddie Wojcik third.
D grade saw some well timed sprints from the experienced Dave Simmons, secure enough points to win with Connor Leahy second and Mike Burrows third.
E grade saw Ken Portman take the win by beating Tony Van Merwyk to the line regularly in a two rider breakaway, with Todd Brown third.
