Club Races
Les Power Scores Again
Stawell Race Course, Sunday 17th August 2008

	Les Power

Cool conditions and a light Southerly wind greeted a smaller field of Grampians Vets riders who lined up for the 55km Stawell Race Course circuit last Sunday.

Riders headed out to Pomonal, turned back towards Stawell, crossed over to Mokepilly and returned to the Pomonal Road, before the final leg home to Stawell.

Limit riders Meg Parnaby, Linda Howlett, Les Power and Shauna Heard made the most of their generous 13 minute start, only dropping 3.5 minutes to the scratch riders after the first 20 kilometers.

At the Mokepilly turn, with 22 kilometers to go, 2 minute riders Stuart King, Leon Gibson, Peter Mayo and Tom Eldridge still trailed the flying limit riders by 6 minutes, with scratch riders Daryl Elliott, Tony Lloyd and Alan Barnett a further 45 seconds in arrears. Although the scratch and 2 minute riders finally combined with about 7 kilometers to go, it was too late to influence the outcome of the race.

Over the final hills, Parnaby, Power and Heard kept the pressure on, and with 1 kilometer to go it was still anyones race. Heard led down the last hill, but Power came past with 300 meters to go. Heard tried to hang on, but Power forged ahead over the last 100 meters to take out a comfortable win, with Heard second and Parnaby third.

Click to enlarge

Les Power leads up the final hill, closely watched by Shauna Heard (left) and Meg Parnaby (right).

The rest of the field came in 3 minutes later, led by Peter Mayo. Tony Lloyd recorded the fastest time of the day, with a time of 1 hour 30 minutes.