A warm evening and fast racing tonight. John Keen finished safely in the bunch in his race. Alan won his race easily – or it looked easy to me. He rode on his own for the last 2.5 laps – particularly harsh, as this was one lap too many, due to an oversight from some bloke called Kev who was on the lap board and who got confused – not a good move for anyone wanting to win a road racers’ popularity contest.
Kris rode well in his race, trying to bridge a gap to the leaders’ breakaway but then getting sucked back into the bunch – which to his surprise, contained Carol and I! We’d been “through and offing” in a small group off the back of our race – we had some great teamwork going on – when we were overtaken by Kris’s bunch – we tagged onto them and got a free ride on their slipstream for a lap – which felt much easier than riding with the older age group, which is smaller, so you don’t get the same protection from the wind.
This is the last race organised by Mark Thompson, Jim Goulden and their merry band of organisers (which included Martin Whyard until very recently) – and there was a well deserved thank you speech for them at the end of the race. Team Elite (including Mark Astles) are taking over organisation of these races next year.