Warm, Warm Warm…
A grand day welcomed our regular track goers and with a night was filled with the dulcet puttering low pitched tones of Derny’s as they hammered round the Park at 30 plus miles an hour.
First though to the warm up race, a 10 lap Hare & Hounds, which saw plenty of attacking action but came down to a field sprint with Neil Cooper, continuing on his good form from last week, who took the win ahead of Matt Gittings and Ian Greenstreet.
With the usual mass of elimination heats of the Derny races dispensed with as quickly as possible, the finals saw some great races of which probably the best was the Senior B’s final where Under 16 rider Cam Swarbrick stormed away from the field to victory.
Top Derny team of pacer George Gilbert and follower Matt Gittings
The Senior A’s saw this years dominant derny follower/pacer team of Matt Gittings & pacer George Gilbert, show the form that has taken them to victory a number of times this year, and they opened up a half lap lead over the finishing laps, lapping at under 29 seconds at one point. Sam Sturgeon came in second with Neil Cooper holding on for third.
The Womens race saw a steady start, a number of early movers from the rear of the field, but finally the biggest efforts from Harriet Owen and Emma Patterson as they stormed away from the field with two laps to go. Owen then put in a final burst on the last lap to win by a quarter of a lap over Patterson, with Under 16’s Natalie Hill third.
Pacer George Gilbert would lead every winner home on the night – this is Cam Swarbrick winning the Senior B’s
Harriet Owen follows George Gilbert home for his third pacing victory
AW Cycles 10km Endurance Race, half the normal distance due to the Derny racing taking a fair bit of time, but it seems that these 10 km races are more competitive than their longer cousins, and at all times during the race there was someone either up the road, Sam Sturgeon, Ian Greenstreet, Alex Peterson, Matt Gittings to name just a few of the main culprits or riders attacking off the front.
Neil Cooper leads the marauding pack to the line
But with the laps ticking down to nought most of the field were still pretty much all in with a shout. A train of riders from the same team including Peterson, Gittings and Cooper, wound the pace up with two to go, stretching the field into a long single line and it was only Ian Greenstreet who could see the danger as on the penultimate bend he accelerated over the top of this trio, followed by Sam Sturgeon, but he began to fade with 80m to go, leaving the door open for Neil Cooper to blast passed him on the outside and Sam Sturgeon equally quick on the inside.
Cooper just held the momentum though and won by half a wheel from Sturgeon with Matt Gittings taking third. Under 16’s Dan Maslin was the first Senior B rider home with Cassie Gledhill the best placed women in the bunch.
A beautiful sky closed out a fabulous evening of racing
