WXCRL Woodlands Road Race 2010

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Saturday 15th May 2010; Verwood, Dorset \ by Graham Robins (www.grahamrobins.net)

Cotty wins with sprint finish
After a short break, the Wessex League resumed with a Handicap race and despite the low turnout, the quality was high. The race was for all categories; with the 4th cats getting a three minute lead over the third cats followed by the Elite, first and second cats away a further two minutes later.

A bright sunny day greeted the riders as they rolled away from the HQ in the village of Woodlands for a race of six laps and a total distance of 69.4km. It took a couple of laps for the race to settle down with the 4th cats not able to make the most of their lead and after a couple of laps, the third cats rolled up behind them and soon formed a large group at the front of the race.

The gap back to the chasing group was coming down and by the third lap the race was all together. With a little over three laps to go, Tom Knowlton (Sotonia) decided it was time for an attack and at the turn near the Horton Inn, he managed to get a 10 second lead and then out of view, opened that up a little more. By the next lap though, Tom had fallen back into the bunch. With no one rider wanting to attack off the front as they took the bell, it looked like we were in for a sprint finish.

With about 3km to go on the last lap, a crash in the bunch, brought six riders down as they tried to avoid a car coming the other way, the bunch squeezed in and there was a touch of wheels which in turn caused a ripple through the bunch with some riders having to stop while others managed to ride around the crash.

As the leaders turned up the finish straight which had a slight uphill to it, James Cotty (Cannondale/Wheelbase) managed to pull away from Steve Dring (Team Echelon – Spiuk) to win the race.

Provisional Result
1. James Cotty (Herbalife/Wheelbase.co.uk/Cannondale)
2. Steve Dring (Team Echelon – Spiuk
3. Roland Tilley (ride Team)
4. Jerry Rainer (Somer Valley CC)
5. Simon Hoyle (Paramount CRT)