Location: Wakefield, Yorkshire
Event: 3 June 2012
Report: Snowdon Sports
Nineteen-year-old Ben Kellett of VS Cycles beat off stiff competition from Sportscover Altura and Blackhawk riders to take his first victory on Sunday.
With the rain pouring down on the pot-hole ridden track, it wasn’t ideal conditions for a race and it showed with quite a slow pace.
Five riders got away early, although they seemed to drift away rather than it being a proper attack. The breakaway was made up of Sportscover Altura RT riders Joe Moses, Ashley Brown and Duncan Moralee, Blackhawk’s William Haynes and eventual winner, Ben Kellett.
Then on lap eight, Moralee suffered a puncture, leaving the group down to four riders. With nobody really committing, Kellett got his head down and drove for the finish. By the time he’d crossed the line, he’d opened up a gap of around 30 seconds.
Ben said: “The weather was awful. Really wet. I don’t think most people were interested and when we got away, it wasn’t really an attack or anything, we just drifted off.
“The pace wasn’t massively high and we just cruised round, picking off the laps. Then on the last lap, I had a look round and the guys didn’t look like they wanted to commit.
“As we were going up the drag, someone left a gap as I rode round to the front to take a look. He couldn’t close it and I just went for it as hard as I could.
“I put my head down and when I finished, I had time to stop and look around to see the others. It’s my first proper win so I’m quite chuffed.
“I don’t prefer the rain but I don’t think it affects me like it does a lot of people. If some riders see rain, they give up and so if you turn up with the attitude to just race, you’ve beaten half the field already.”
Results:
1/2/3:
1 Ben Kellett (VS Cycles)
2 Joe Moses (Sportscover Altura RT)
3 William Haynes (Blackhawk Bikes)
4 Ashley Brown (Sportscover Altura RT)
5 Rob Sharman (Sportscover Altura RT)
6 Craig Anderson (Blackhawk Bikes)
7 Jamie Burgan (Langsett Cycles)
8 Todd Hotchkiss (Performance Cycles)
9 Sam Boast (Team Hope Factory Racing)
10 Scott McCrossan (We Love Mountains)
British Cycling would like to thank the organising team, officials and everyone else who helped promote this event. Our sport could not exist without the hundreds of people, many of them unpaid volunteers, who put in many hours of hard work running events, activities and clubs.
