Warrick Win in Warwick whilst Elliott Clinches the Series

 

Warwick Town Centre Races incorporating the Elite Circuit Race Series

Warwick 17th September 2006

Report & Pics: Richard Robotham

 

The crowds gathered in Warwick's Old Square on a hot and humid day for an entertaining days racing which started with Tricycle Racing at midday and 5 hours later ended with the Finale of the Elite Circuit Races Series. Organiser Pete Mooney laid on races for 4th Cats (Come and try it), Youth and U12's, Unicycles, the WCRA National Circuit Race Championships and 3rd/4th & Juniors.

 

Rob Hayles on the front early in the race

It was clear from the start of the Elite Race that tactics where going to play a big part in the overall series victory between Plowman Craven RT's Malcolm Elliott and Team KLR's Rob Hayles. Prior to the start Elliott led the series by 66 points over Hayles, however the series result is taken from the best 7 events throughout the series which meant Elliott had a very slender lead over Hayles and many permutations of the final result could see Hayles winning the series.

An early attack by Kristian House (Recycling.co.uk) turned out to be the decisive break when Warrick Spence (London Dynamo CycleFit) joined him at the head of the race. The pair managed to stay away for over 50 minutes lapping the majority of the field including Elliot & Hayles. Four Riders did manage to stay clear of the House & Spence attack and they maintained a constant time gap, these were James Taylor (Plowman Craven RT), Dan Booth (Magura), Ian Wilkingson (Science In Sport) and Dave Collins (Scott UK).

 

Warrick Spence leads the unlucky Kristian House

With 5 laps to go, all of the lapped Riders (which were still in the race) contested a sprint to decide the minor placings. Elliot took the minor sprint to finish 7th overall. Hayles who was clearly upset with the nature of the tactics used in the race didn't contest the sprint but came across the line on foot wheeling his bike. This meant that Elliott will take the series overall.

 

 

Rob Hayles (left) makes his point at the end of the race, whilst Malcolm Elliott (right) wrapped up the series

With 3 laps to go, Warrick Spence found himself out on his own. Kristian House later crossed the line and clearly had a mechanical problem which later transpired to be a loose crank. House was caught by the chasing Riders on the next lap but managed to keep his bike going and finished 6th overall.

Despite the loss of House's input into the long break, Spence managed to stay away from the chasing four and took the chequered flag for first place, Taylor took the sprint for second followed by Wilkinson for third, Collins came in fourth and Booth was fifth.

Warrick Spence commented on the race:

"I saw Kristian House break away, and remembering the course from last year, thought that gap could be bridged. I really struggled but a circuit is a circuit and you can over ride it: the hill was ok, having ridden last year I had already sussed the corner out, you miss the manhole cover and turn really late, but Kristian House is really good to ride with, he's nice and steady and he suggested that we ride one whole laps, we didn't really know what was going on behind us but we caught the group with Elliott and Hayles."

 

Warrick Spence (London Dynamo CycleFit) enjoys his win

 

"We heard that there were 4 chasing, I really didn't know how I was going to contest the sprint and then as we were going around a corner we started pedalling and Kristian's crank came off, the bolt had come off the spindle, I started to push him and he said what are you doing you've got this one won, I thought he was going to change his bike, so I carried on"

James Taylor later commented that he was pleased with Malcolm Elliott's overall win of the series stating

"The series has been one of the team's objectives from the start of the season. We have won the National Criterium Championship and now the Criterium Series, and with me and Tony Gibb winning the Madison Champs last week it's all coming together and we are really happy. It would have been nice to go out on a win today but the team tactic was to make sure Malcolm won the series overall"

 

Taylor, Spence and Wilkinson on the podium

Rob Hayles, clearly upset stated:

"I knew it would take a miracle to stand a chance of winning the series, but I wanted to race today and win. I didn't have the legs to go with the moves at the start so I rode tempo to lead the riders out for a bit and then I stuck the brakes on, as it was obvious no one else wanted to race"