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FNWTR Week 1 Report The smiles on the cyclist’s faces were bright and broad as they entered the DGV from a dark, cold and rainy evening. The smiles were not for the weather but for the fact that FNWTR was up and running for 2007 2005 and 2006 series winner Patrick Bolan was nowhere to be seen which generated similar questions to when Jan Ullrich was ineligible to start the 2006 Tour De France…..Who will win this year’s series? Favorite 5-3: Jason Roberts. The big man was second to Bolan in 06 by 3 points. Although Jason’s fitness was lacking on Friday he still did enough to prove to me that he is going to ride himself into form. Jason has proven he has what it takes to be consistent in both endurance and sprint events throughout the year. 2-1 Anthony Bennett. This boy loves to race. With an Australian title under his belt and pro road team for 2007 Anthony has stepped up a level. The big question is will his pro road team commitments interfere with the FNWTR title? 3-1 Andrew Herrmann: This LACC rider is a force to be reckoned with in 2007. He is also a club-mate of Anthony Bennett. So if my query on Anthony’s eligibility to contest the whole series is true, you can swap their odds around as Anthony will become a valuable team-mate. 6-1 Peter Barnard: World Champion Sprinter will come into super hot form as he comes closer to the World Championships David Browne: David is like a Termite…Not easy to see (once you know he's there it's probably too late), very hard to get rid of and devastating if given the opportunity. 7-1 Tommy Palmer: Junior World Title duties and travel from Canberra should prevent this talented rider from taking out the series. 8-1 Michael Mellish: solid sprinter capable of winning anything Ben Simonelli: solid sprinter capable of winning almost anything Jayson Austin: Can break away in any race 15-1 All other riders from week 1 including Daniel Ellis whose AIS commitments usually rule out a challenge. Wild Cards If J-L Rathbone turns up, all Books are frozen James Schneider: The Ned Kelly of track racing, he can steal a race from anyone. Shaun Hopkins: World Paralympics commitments will prevent the three time series winner from making 4 in 2007 Patrick Bolan: Has anyone seen him on a bike? Tomlinson, Law, Stokes, and Davidson the list goes on. The feature race was “The Velocraft 1km wheel-race” for Div1. A large field and very tight handicapping, particularly between 40 and 60m’s, had everyone predicting a scratch race. However, Alan Townsend had different ideas. Starting off limit on 105m, Alan exploded off the start and never looked back as he increased his lead to around 30m on a chasing group which included David Willmott (100m) who chose not to follow Alan’s powerful start. Off scratch young super star Ellis had an impressive start to form a strong back group of Palmer, Bennett and Bird. They moved quickly to the business end of the pace-line however, hit a wall of riders with 2 laps remaining that put a serious dent in their chances of victory. Into Bell lap Alan Townsend had built a lead of 50m over the rest and looked like taking it out, when suddenly bursting from the heights of bank two came young Canberra rider Matthew Meisel-Dennis. Like an eagle swooping on prey Matty hunted down the tiring Townsend to take the victory with metres to spare. Many thanks to Brad Craft from the title sponsor Velocraft. Most impressive were the Div 5 group of first time track riders who provided very exciting racing. Day License rider Garth McInerney was clearly the strongest, however, he had a hard time beating the so called beginners, especially Peter Tully and Rik who challenged him all the way. The two girls showed great style in all races. Round 3 this week featured Miss’N’Outs which are always exciting and Round 4 had the tactical Points-race. A few riders may like to rethink their grading such as Div 4 rider Alex Frame who dominated the Points Race and Div 3 rider Tirian McManus who all but rode the field off his wheel during the Miss’n’out. The “Maersk Logistics CNSW Time Blaster” started with a full field of 24 riders and looked good over the first few laps with experienced riders like Barnard and Willmott setting a comfortable pace of 48km/hr however, when the bunch went through the first 10 laps 4 seconds down, a few individuals panicked. This resulted in a split that may have destroyed field. After some calming words from the commentator the riders settled back into their rhythm and went through the 20lap time check 3 seconds down but with at least 10 riders still working hard. At this point the pace really started to light up with Daniel Ellis doing a sacrifice lap, bringing the bunch up to speed in excess of 50km/hr. The continued efforts of the riders secured the speed required to win the money. With 2 laps to go Tommy Palmer hit the front hard and rode everyone off his wheel to take the $100 cash in a time of 9 minutes 01 seconds 49.9km/h. The Ivan Colig Last Man Standing Prize of $40 goes to last Div 2 rider to be dropped so long as the Time Blaster is beaten. This was won by Brian Crawford when the young courageous Jack Bennett cracked with 5 laps to go. Next week will feature the Maersk Logistics 1km wheel-race for Div 2, in addition to the this we will have our first sprint night and judging by the speed of some of our world class Div 1 riders it will be a blast. This will be a great night for spectators as well, especially now that we again have use of the magnificent grandstand. Cheers Paul
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