A strong showing by club riders in the 1st Velo race of the season at Car Colston– the weather was mainly fine with a strong tail wind down the finishing straight – this of course lead to a nasty head wind section further round the 33 mile fairly flat course course.
14 club riders took part with Carol Mile riding her very first race in Grp2, Dave Herd was in Grp3, Dave Mould, Tony Mendham, Ian Makevit & Crispin Bridges-Webb were in Grp 4, Mark Colclough, Mick Egner, John Farmer, Martin Milne & Chris Samler were in Grp 5 and Paul Conneley & Mark Kokosinski were in Grp6.
Grp 4 rode reasonably well together but lost a couple of riders in the early laps. They were caught by Grp 5 towards the end of the 3rd lap and whilst the pace was brisk at times things seem to settle down. Unfortunately Mick Egner took a heavy tumble at the corner just after getting the bell for the last lap. With the early groups still not having been caught it still needed some work doing by the group. With about 3 or 4 miles to go Grp 6 caught Grps 4 & 5 and the pace quicken again with Grps 1.2 & 3 being caught soon afterwards. There was a lull before the storm as the bunch then turned onto the tailwind section to the finish and the pace wound up all the way to the line. There was a large bunch sprinting for the line and the road was very crowded! However everyone crossed the line safely with Mark Kokosinski taking the overall win in first race in the Velo series.
Chris Samler was 2nd overall and first in Grp5
Martin Milne was 3rd in Grp5
Dave Mould was 6th overall and 1ts in Grp4
Tony Mendham was 10th overall and 3rd in Grp4
Rob Johnson was 11th overall.
Apologies to anyone missed out of the placings – it was done from memory as the full list hasn’t been published yet!
Carol Milne rode well in her first ever race and no doubt learnt a lot from it. It looks as if Mick Egner was battered and bruised from his fall but otherwise not too badly injured.
Next Velo race is on 6th April at North Kelsey.
Full photo album to follow
