Published: 22 July 2008
- The night sky is ablaze during racing at Palmer Park
- Photograph courtesy of David Jack
Palmer Park was ablaze with sunshine and sheer unadulterated speed, with a plethora of champions from our region putting the hurt on everyone.
The big race of the night was the Central Divisions Team Sprint Competition, and it was great to see the divisions coordinator Colin Garnham, up and about after his horrendous accident a month ago, to be a part of the excitement.
To the action where teams of three take to the line, each rider doing half a lap on the front and then peeling off to leave the last rider to do the final half lap dash, with the fastest two teams making the finals. Teams came and went as Team Terminator, made up of Lee Povey, Sam Sturgeon and ex-Junior World Team Sprint champion Peter Mitchell, had set the fastest time in Heat 2, of 47.77secs. Heat 3 saw AW Cycles set the next quickest time and held off the fast finishing Twickenham A squad by less than half a second to secure the second finals berth. Twickenham taking home the Bronze.
- Lee Povey lets loose Peter Mitchell on their way to victory in the Team Sprint
- Photograph courtesy of David Jack
The Final was an absolute humdinger. AW Cycles were neck and neck with the favoured Team Terminators, after the first changeover, but after a blistering second turn from Roger Woodford, AW took the lead eeking out a lead of 40 metres, but when Peter Mitchell opened up the booster rockets, he blasted the Terminators into a victory by 30 metres. Too much!!!
The Youths had their full complement of races this evening with the close and exciting racing from the Under12/10's. Daniel Lansley took the 1 lap TT, Max Stedman winning the Unknown distance with Reg Pay taking the final two races, the Sprint and then the Devil.
The Under 14's was a continuing battle between Daniel Maslin , Cameron Swarbrick and Ben Bailey but Master Maslin had things completely under control last night by winning all four of his races. awesome!!
In the Under 16 Girls events it was Rosie Serruya who dominated the racing with three wins from four but Stephanie May upset the clean sweep with a win in the 1 lap TT.
The Seniors also had a multitude of endurance events plus a league sprint competition.
The A Sprint league is hotly contested and tonight's winner was Rob Drinkwater, who used some devastating power to open up a gap of 4 bike lengths to hold this gap on Martin Dawkins and Neil Cooper.
The B's sprint had a victory for Under 16's rider John Paul over another U16's Stephen Bradbury with Nick English a close third.
The Women's event saw Janet Birkmyre consolidate her lead in the championship after chasing down an early attack from Nikki Drinkwater to win comfortably. Birkmyre has just completed a fabulous last two weeks of racing where she won 5 National Masters Track titles at Newport and then defended her National Women's Omnium Series title for a fourth year in a row.
- The field riding tempo in the Devil, whilst one rider is off the front
- Photograph courtesy of swarbrick.com
Other events this evening saw a lap one solo attack by David Jack in the Senior Devil event where he stayed away to win by 80 mteres on the chasing pack.
- Chris Legg continues his good season form to win the 20km
- Photograph courtesy of David Jack
A victory by Chris Legg in the Hare and Hounds was followed up by a commanding win from him in the AW Cycles 20km, where he escaped early on and although a group chased hard, it wasn't concerted enough and Legg lapped them and the entire field.
Next week is the Divisional 20km championship but will be devoid of many league regulars as it is the European Masters Track Championships at Manchester. Good luck to everyone attending.
Photo's courtesy of www.swarbrick.com and some by amateur photographer David Jack too!
David Jack