Event One Little Weighton Course - 32 Miles - club City RC

A reasonably calm evening prompted a fairly big field for the first of the series and riders were queuing up to sign on like a supermarket having a sale, right until the very last minute. Consequently the groups had to be arranged hastily and the time gaps hurriedly applied. It worked out as follows:

Group 1
Anthony Weston, Mark Summer, Andy Blanchard, Peta Estens, David Watson, Andrew Penny and Peter Rogers

Group 2
Martin Cockerill, Ben Roberts, Andy Barnes, Lee Watson, Steven Waterall, Simon Nicholls, John Brearley, Paul Rooney, Nathan Wilson, Jeremy Ireland, Daniel Wright, Derek Palmer, Geoff Bryan, Jeffrey Hardy, Jim Baker, Andy Peers, Bill Hodgson, Andrew Abbott, Chris Garden, Simon Collins, Christian Fletcher, Chris Brearley, Mark McKeown, David Atkinson, Matthew Fenton, John Galbraith, Barry Dixon and Rob Almond

Group 3
John Hopper, David Compston, Stewart Pickard, Kevin Holmes, John Galway, Chris Burton, Steve Macklin, Ryan MacLachlan, Lee Cairns, Garry Fulstow, Mike Gill, Mark Best and Tony Washbrook

Group 4
Zak Thackray and Paul Purdy

Group 5

Dave Shackleton, Stephen Ward, Alistair Kay, Richard Moore, Mike Moss, Dan Keena

DNS
Richard Hepworth, Mark Hepworth, Steve Marrows, Anthony Pearson and Jason Benham

Groups one and two obviously were all 4th category riders so we split a handful out as virtual novices and gave them a three minute start. Two and a half minutes later the thirds were let loose (including some honest 4th cats who wanted a better race). We let the two second cats, Zak Thackray and Paul Purdy off half a minute behind and the scratch group went two minutes behind them. It was possible for everyone to finish together - but hopefully unlikely for the judge's sake.

Then end of lap one saw the front group breaking into fragments as expected, After 21 minutes one rider (Mark Summer) was 20 seconds ahead of a small group hanging on to Peta Estens. Maybe Mark thought there was a prime on this lap but the primes were on laps two and three - and he paid for his effort. Front group had lost half their allowance off group two.

Group two was a fairly big group and the strong lads from Bridlington, with Lee Watson from Pete Read were making the effort and crossed the line only 20 seconds behind the front group. Nevertheless group three, more co-ordinated by experience, put in a big effort on lap one and reduced the gap by more than a minute. This effort was too much for Paul Purdy and Zak Thackray - their half minute handicap on them proved too much, unable to bridge this gap they were now waiting to join the scratch group.

Lap two was the first of the Paul Baskerville primes which Martin Cockerill took from Nathan Wilson. Groups one and two had merged, as had groups four and five, and the gap from front to back was 2:45. Looked like the handicapping hadn't been too far out. The gaps between groups two and three was now down to a minute as this latter group had slowed down a bit from lap one - not resting on their laurels for catching group one I hope. Group five were being pretty consistent in their lap times.

Lap three prime was won by David Compston, another Brid lad. Are they sharing them out? Big thing here was that there were now only two groups effectively, Group two had been caught and the scratch group was lagging by a minute and a half. It didn't now seem likely that they would be in at the kill.

And so it proved. John Hopper was the hero of the day, the T Rex rider seems to have found good form this year. He beat the Bridlington lads who took the next four places. First of the scratch group was Dave Shackleton closely holding off the last minute sprint of Steve Ward and Ali Kay, but there were a couple of dozen riders in front of them.

Overall it was a good start - there's no doubt that when the scratch group get up to the finish there's not much the others can do but sacrifice the top places. If you've forgotten how the points are awarded - this is a reminder

Here's a breakdown of the lap times

 

 

 

 

 

	Group One	Group Two	Group Three	Group Four	Group Five
Start time	00:00	03:00	05:30	06:00	08:00
Lap One	21:30	18:40	17:35	18:30	17:30
Lap Two	caught	18:40	18:15	caught	17:35
Lap Three		caught	17:50		17:35
Lap Four			18:05		17:15

 

Points System
All riders finishing in the first 20 place each event get points as follows:
1st place 15points 6th place 6 points
2nd place 12 points 7th place 5 points
3rd place 10 points 8th place 4 points
4th place 8 points 9th place 3 points
5th place 7 points 10th place 2 points
and from 11th to 20th place, 1 point each
In addition 2 Bonus points are award to the first in each group, except for the winner of the event.

Result from Thursday, 13th May 2004

Pos.	Rider	Club	Points	Group
1	John Hopper	T Rex	15	3	50 Km in 1:17:15
2	Martin Cockerill	Bridlington CC	14	2	s.t.
3	David Compston	Bridlington CC	10	3	s.t.
4	Ben Roberts	Bridlington CC	8	2	s.t.
5	Stewart Pickard	Bridlington CC	7	3	s.t.
6	Kevin Holmes	Yorvik	6	3	s.t.
7	John Galway	Keswick MTB	5	3	s.t.
8	Chris Burton	Hull Thursday RC	4	3	s.t.
9	Steve Macklin	Hull Thursday RC	3	3	s.t.
10	Ryan MacLachlan	Cottingham Coureurs	2	3	s.t.
11	Lee Cairns	Pete Read Racing	1	3	s.t.
12	Andy Barnes	Hull Thursday RC	1	2	s.t.
13	Garry Fulstow	City RC (Hull)	1	3	s.t.
14	Lee Watson	Pete Read Racing	1	2	s.t.
15	Mike Gill	Team Chevin	1	3	s.t.
16	Steven Waterall	Bridlington CC	1	2	s.t.
17	Simon Nicholls	Knaresborough RT	1	2	s.t.
18	John Brearley	City RC (Hull)	1	2	s.t.
19	Paul Rooney	Race Scene	1	2	s.t.
20	Nathan Wilson	Hull Thursday RC	1	2	s.t.
21	Jeremy Ireland	Caygill Frames		2	s.t.
22	Daniel Wright	Private		2	@ 15 secs
23	Derek Palmer	Hull Thursday RC		2	@ 20 secs
24	Geoff Bryan	Featherstone RC		2	@ 35 secs
25	Dave Shackleton	Hull Thursday RC	2	5	@ 40 secs
26	Stephen Ward	Pete Read Racing		5	s.t.
27	Alistair Kay	York Cycleworks		5	s.t.
28	Richard Moore	Cottingham Coureurs		5	@ 45 secs
29	Zak Thackray	Yorkshire	2	4	@ 52 secs
30	Paul Purdy	Star Bikes		4	@ 55 secs
31	Jeffrey Hardy	Calder Clarion		2	@ 58 secs
32	Jim Baker	Leeds RRC		2	@ 1.15
33	Andy Peers	Hull Thursday RC		2
34	Bill Hodgson	Selby CC		2
35	Andrew Abbott	Bridlington CC		2
36	Chris Garden	Hull Thursday RC		2
37	Anthony Weston	Huddersfield RC	2	1
38	Simon Collins	Bridlington CC		2
39	Christian Fletcher			2
40	Chris Brearley	City RC (Hull)		2
41	Mark McKeown	Bridlington CC		2
42	David Atkinson	City RC (Hull)		2
43	Mark Summer	Hull Thursday RC		1
44	Andy Blanchard	Huddersfield RC		1
45	Peta Estens	Leeds RRC		1
46	David Watson	Hull Thursday RC		1
47	Andrew Penny	Hull Thursday RC		1
dnf	Peter Rogers	Bridlington CC		1
dnf	Mike Moss	Cottingham Coureurs		5
dnf	Matthew Fenton	City RC (Hull)		2
dnf	Mark Best	Hull Thursday RC		3
dnf	John Galbraith	T Rex		2
dnf	Tony Washbrook	City RC (Hull)		3
dnf	Barry Dixon	T Rex		2
dnf	Rob Almond	Hull Thursday RC		2
dnf	Dan Keena	Cottingham Coureurs		5