As the season starts to draw to a close the penultimate round of the Velo 99 series was held on the Staunton circuit on Sunday 31st August.
 The weather was a vast improvement on the previous race, it was dry and sunny!!
The Witham Wheelers were well represented again with Dave Moulds, Phil Atherton and Tony Mendham riding in Group 4, Mark Colclough, Gary Rands, Mick Egner and Rob Johnson in Group 5 and Paul Conneeley and Mark Kokocinski in Group 6. Quite a few of the Witham  Wheelers were on marshalling duties.
 The early Groups had a good handicap lead so the faster Groups had to ride hard to have a chance of catching them. Group 4 rode hard and it took nearly 2 laps for Group to close the narrow 1 minute gap they had at the start. There didn’t seem to be much urgency from Group 5 once they caught Group 4 and just before the start of the last lap they were caught by a fast moving Group 6. The strong Group 6 riders took on the pace catching the Group 3 riders, just 2 of whom were able to hang onto the quick pace. Despite the pace of this group the early groups weren’t caught and they took most of the top 10 places.
Paul Conneeley was the first Witham Wheeler to finish in 11th place followed by Mick Egner in 13th place and Rob Johnson in 15th place. Most of the remaining Witham  Wheelers filled the next few places.
 With only the Alford race to come on Sunday 7th September Dave Moulds is looking good to win the overall series.
 At least this time the weather shouldn’t result in about half the riders being ill!!
