Club Races
Stokes Wins at Quarry Road
Quarry Road Handicap, Sunday 2nd November, 2008

	Frank Stokes

Mild gentle conditions greeted a good field of 19 riders for the 47km Quarry Road handicap.

Limit riders Meg Parnaby, Shauna Heard and Frank Stokes set off with a sixteen minute start, followed by Leon Gibson, Sean Prins and Shane Clarke, riding off seven minutes.

Three minute riders Drew Heard, Harvey Lang, Gerard O’Brien, Peter Mayo, Peter Parnaby and Danny Monaghan were reeled in after only 16km by second scratch riders Mark Ubergang, Ian Johnston, Alan Barnett and Tim Schneider, who started off 2 minutes.

This combined group then charged off after the leading bunches, setting up a difficult task for the scratch riders Ian Blackie, Chris Scott and Frank Kean to hitch up with.

Meanwhile the limit riders were making the best of the fast, almost windless, conditions, and made it along the Sandbar Road and over the Quarry Road hills still retaining a good lead over the following bunches.

Next over the Quarry Road hills were the seven minute riders, but almost immediately they were joined by the big combined two and three minute bunch. However, with only a few kilometers to ride the limit riders were still well clear, and Frank Stokes went on to win from Meg Parnaby second.

Shauna Heard had lost contact with the other two limit riders over the last few kilometers, so with third place still up for grabs, the big following bunch of riders was winding up for a sprint finish. However, over the last few hundred meters, disaster struck, with three riders going down. Fortunately no bones were broken, but plenty of skin was shed on the bitumen.

The sprint petered out (no pun intended!) for the remaining riders, but Drew Heard eventually crossed the line next to be officially declared third. The scratch riders came in shortly afterwards, with Blackie claiming fastest race time (approximately 1 hour 10 minutes – as there was some confusion due the crash).

Club officials are currently looking at implementing a more efficient rider education program, to increase rider safety, after riders have suffered two crashes in the last 3 weeks.