Sunday, April 23, 2006

NSW State XC - Round 2 - Killingworth

After a lot of riders expressed disappointment with the track and organisation at Thredbo, it was very brave of the Hunter Mountain Bike Association to step in at the last minute to host the second round. Judging by the smiles on the faces of people coming back from their warm up laps Adam Freeman had put together a ripper of a track.

Both the Elite Men's & Women's races followed a similar script with a Fleming getting away to a fast start opening up a nice gap, leaving the rest of the field to sort out the minor places.


Juniors Men
Ealier in the day racing started with the Juniors with Jordan Lynch & Michael Baker again taking their second win for the series in the U13 & U15 respectively. Second & third for the U15 went to Kye and Blake Polverino. Jordon was on his own in the U13 but did well to keep up with the older boys.




Michael Baker gets away to lead from the start




Jordan Lynch getting some air time on his final lap.


Under 17 had a completely different field to Thredbo. With the win being taken by Nathan McMillan followed by Stephen Pitt & Chris Searle in a very close finish for second & third.




Chris Searle chasing Stephen Pitt through the switch back decent.


Under 19 Men. Nathan Haas was having a very close battle Alex Pung with the lead chaing a number of times in the first few laps before being able to get away on the final lap to take a comfortable win. Alex came in second, almost 5 minutes in front of Dylan Prohm.




Nathan Haas leads Alex Pung and Dylan Prohm (obscured) through the end of lap 1.


Women's Grades
A lot bigger field than Round 1 but there were still a few grades where the with a lone entrant. The biggest was for the Elite with 6 riders. Kimberly Fleming (Clarance Street Cyclery) got off to a flyer of the start, racing away to over a minute and a half gap by the end of the first lap that just kept getting bigger. Maria Papadopolus (Clarance Street Cyclery) came through for second with Natalie Nohra (Endeavour Cycles) in 3rd. In 4th place was Erica O'Brian on the comeback after her nasty crash at Thredbo.




Kimberly Fleming leading all the way for a comfortable win


The rest of the Womens grades were as follows
Masters 1 & 2: Mary Fein
Masters 3 & 4: First - Larri Brittan, Second - Jo Beaumont
Sport: Nicola Frost
Under 19: Nicola Henderson
Under 15: Caitlin Beaumont


Men's Grades
Master's 1 & 2
David Coward (SIC) took the early lead closely followed by Julien Redmond and Liam O'Dea (Burwood Cycleworld) however they were unable to hold out the more consistent Dean Megahy. Julien Redmond finished in 2nd with David finishing 3rd. Back in the field there were some fierce personal battles taking place Leo Assandri was pushing very hard to beat Scott James before crashing off the side of the final bridge on lap 3 – amazingly he got back on a finished the race. There were a couple of others not so fortunate.




David Coward leading early on




Juzzy aka The Pink Monkey(Blackman's Cycles) flying the flag for the Singlespeeders


Masters 3 & 4
Ken McMillan led from start to finish ahead of Mark Hardy & John Miller.



Ken McMillan (Wheeler Bikes)


Masters 5
Russ Baker didn't have this class to himself this time with 4 other old blokes turning up. Neil Lumley won with Keiran Hogan in second, only just ahead of John Graydon in third




Start of the Masters 5 race


Expert Men
Todd Sinclair took the win from Stuart Lowndes and a very consistant Ben Carmody




Neil Barlow (MWMTB President) taking on the Experts


Elite Men
Nothing was stopping the Flemings today. Mathew charged away from the start to lead from start from finish. Aiden Leifman chased hard to finish second ahead of team mate Craig Gordon.




Matthew Fleming (Clarence Street Cyclery)




Aiden Leifman (Canndondale-Maxxis)




Craig Gordon (Cannondale-Maxxis)




Adam Freeman, course setter extrordinaire finished in 5th


Sport Men
What can I say – the best was saved till last. In fading light the sport men took off with Rob McNaughton making a suprise break. Even more surprised were the rest of the field when they caught him on the first hill. Fortunately for Rob his decending ability and local knowledge meant he was actually able to retake the lead from Rob Parbery who despite stomping up the climbs could not make back the time Rob McNaughton was taking from him on the decents. Michael Hogan found a second wind to charge home for 3rd.


Full results


More Pictures


See you all at the next round

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home