Club Races
Jensen Jets to Victory
Stawell Racecourse - Sunday 7th October 07

As in recent weeks, another small field fronted up for the short course version of the Stawell Racecourse event. As the majority of the riders had raced the day before in the Ivan Howe Memorial race the shorter distance was very welcome.

Mild sunny weather with a light variable wind provided ideal racing, although the wind did seem to follow the riders around resulting in what seemed to be a head wind for much of the way.

Both Danny Monaghan and Michael Jensen returned to racing after a long break, and set off along with Meg Parnaby on the limit mark of 8 minutes.

Three minutes behind were Leon Gibson, Wayne Cox and Les Power, followed 2 minutes later by Peter Parnaby, Tony Lloyd and Jamie Bennett. Scratch riders Alan Barnett and Frank Kean were a further 3 minutes behind, but this mark proved too much for them, and they hardly glimpsed the other bunches for the entire race.

Well into the race, the limit markers broke up, with Danny Monaghan dropping off when he ran out of gas (and was also suffering from a bad back), followed by Meg Parnaby who could not match the pace of Jensen.

However, it was the second scratch bunch of Bennett, Peter Parnaby and Lloyd who were making great time, and had reeled in the bunch in front about 3kms after the Mokepilly turn, picking up Gibson and Cox as they went past.

This group then combined to ensure the scratch markers didn’t get a look in. They powered on to overtake Jensen with about 12kms to go, also picking him up as they went past.