Yesterday kicked off the first race of this year’s @auscyclingsa cyclingsuperseries at the Pakapakanthi Crit Track, with our team present in the Cat 2 Mens race, as well as individuals entered in Cat 3 Men.
Unsurprisingly, Cat 2 Race was super fast with a group of very strong and experienced racers. The first couple of laps were quite pleasant… and then the pace ratcheted up – hard.
There was a flurry of attacks, with Adam, Michael and Jimmy taking turns in following moves.
In amongst the chaos, a strong move formed containing almost all teams – with exception of Blackchrome and one other team.
Adam and Michael set to work with significant efforts to close the gap and keep pressure on the break. Because of this pressure, the break began to splinter – with team representation being reduced.
With only two teams ‘up the road’, impetus within the bunch to chase was restored – and Adam, Michael and Jimmy made solid contributions to bring the boys up the road back into the bunch.
From that point a few more attacks went, but with 10 minutes to go the bunch was happy to let a lone rider remain off the front with a modest gap that would no doubt be closed in the final two laps. This made sense to our team, too, as we had a strong sprinter in Nick Clark who had been sitting pretty all race.
The cycling gods had other thoughts though – a crash on the bottom corner into the bell lap resulted in a chaotic (but entirely necessary) race neutralisation and places were taken on where riders were positioned into the bell lap.
In terms of a race result – this left Nick just shy of the podium, and if the race had proceeded unencumbered he would have no doubt been very competitive in the sprint.
Despite the unusual finish, the race provided the team with confidence and a genuine sense of excitement heading into the rest of the race series – looking forward to Walaroo and Moonta this coming weekend.
Thanks to James Raison (@rideadelaide) and Turn 8 Photo for the photos.
