Star Bikes Circuit TT championship Event 5 – Tuesday 6th May 2008

Paul Purdy made it 2 wins on the trot on Tuesday night with a convincing victory over Dean Fulstow in round 5 at Etton. His winning margin of 12 seconds was exactly twice that in the previous event at Little Weighton and now puts him at the head of the overall points table. In third place and slowly improving after a delayed start to the season was Neil Cleminshaw, with Pete FS and Steve Macklin both close behind. With only 37 second covering these 5 riders and it looks like one of them will head the table at the end of the season. The only questions being which one will win and in what order they will finish.

An equally close battle was being fought behind between the next batch of riders, Mark McKeown and John Askew, and then Nathan and the 3 marks (Ollernshaw, Summer and Walker) who finished in that order with only a handful of seconds separating them.

It seemed summer had finally arrived and brought some much need warmth to the country, with warm temperatures and only a slight easterly wind blowing. As usual however once up to racing speed the wind seemed much stronger and was blowing in the riders faces as they rode the longest and predominantly down hill leg from the top of the climb after the start. The course is always slowest when the wind blows this way and times were generally about 90second slower than when the wind blows down the hill.

The ladies were once again well represented with 3 riders competing over 2 laps of the circuit although Jane continued to ride another lap and recorded a highly respectable time. Dawn and Alison both rode and enjoyed the practice for their forthcoming triathlon debut on Sunday.

Apologises about the lack of reports from the last 2 events. The bitterly cold prologue was won be Neil by just 2 seconds from Paul Purdy (who you may recall beat Karl by a single second last year to win) with Steve third a further 8 seconds adrift. This year the wind was more of a side wind, unlike last year when a storming back wind led to some ridiculously fast times. The temperatures were also very cold which resulted in riders feeling like their lungs had been ripped out when they finished.

Paul took his first victory 2 weeks ago after beating Steve and Pete FS at Little Weighton with 30 seconds covering the first 3 riders. Unfortunately as I was on holiday with Mike (having to endure mile after mile of new Spanish tarmac in balmy (mid 70s) temperatures and excessive amounts of ice-cold San Miguel lager) I don’t know what else happen and so can’t report on it.

On a more serious note I can report that the Costa Dorada (approximately 100 miles south of Barcelona) is a fantastic area for cycling with some superb and very quiet (traffic free) roads in a semi-mountainous terrain once away from the costal strip. Five miles inland from the beach and the roads climb gently into mountains that top out at about 1000m above sea level. The area is used extensively by the Tour of Cataluyna car rallies and pro-bike race and seem to have been freshly resurfaced everywhere. Having been out there 5 times in the last 2 years and travelled extensively I can certainly recommend it. With a half-board hotel for 5 costing less than £600 (for us all) it certainly offers good value for money too!

Finally can all riders check the points table and advise if they have not been awarded marshalling points especially for the last 2 events as I don’t have a record who tuned up

Copyright (c) Hull Thusday RC 1908 - 2008 All HTML code and images contained within are the intellectual property of the author. Please do not attempt to copy them. If you would like any images, please send an email to Webmaster@hullthursdayrc.karoo.co.uk