Bunch sprint ends Lex Watt Trophy

RIDERS battled for the Lex Watt Trophy handicap race on Saturday in perfect conditions.
Not only did riders have to battle against each other around two laps of the 50 kilometre Pound Creek circuit but a few other obstacles as well.
A red traffic light was activated on the Pound Creek-Koonwarra Road which meant a quick pre-race meeting to decide on a course of action.
The consensus was to race the circuit as is and for riders to take their chances on the green light; some were lucky, others had to wait one or two minutes for the red to become green. There was also a lot more traffic due to a diversion in place due to an accident.
This made for an interesting race but as it turned out nearly the whole bunch came together at the end for the final sprint which saw Warragul’s Rob Monk play the right cards to come across the line first from Cameron Brown second and the in form Lachlan Matthews getting the third placing.
The 13 minute bunch of Peter McLean, Rod Cheyne, Tony Giles and Kerry Pritchard were working well together and had passed all the out markers on the second lap. At the traffic lights the second time they just missed the sequence which saw Lachlan Matthews, Mark Bensley and Brad Bouquet join for a seven rider bunch.
This group worked hard to keep the four and three minute groups at bay until the top of the golf course hill when these groups were almost as one.
Up the Inverloch Road and it was a big dash of 10 riders trying to jostle position for the sprint as the corner was rounded with just Kerry Pritchard dropped on the golf course hill.
Lorchan Heneghan from the four minute bunch was caught working on his own at the front while the other riders readied for the sprint.
Heneghan took off but was quickly overtaken by the sprinters with Monk over the line first in a time of 1.23.33 from Cameron Brown. Being the first Leongatha rider across the line he took out the Lex Watt Trophy. Third was Lachlan Matthews followed by Lachlan Matthews, Peter McLean, Lorchan Heneghan, Rod Cheyne, Leigh Stott, Tony Giles, Brad Bouquet and Mark Bensley rounding out the top ten.
The scratch bunch weren’t so lucky, Warragul rider Connor Bagot suffered a puncture leaving just Brett Franklin and Ollie McLean to chase. Despite this Brett came in with fastest time of 1.21.33.
The club had its big paper shed clean-up day on Sunday and thanks all for coming along and helping out.
Next week sees the club have a social ride on Saturday starting at 10.30am from the start of the rail trail in Leongatha with a meet up for lunch after the return. Meet at the park near the trail head. On Sunday, June 3 there’s a Gippsland Road Championship combine race hosted by Latrobe starting at Boolarra at 8am. The three day tour is coming along for the June Long Weekend.

Great achievement: from left Cameron Brown, second, Rob Monk (Warragul) first, and Lachlan Matthews, third, were the 50km handicap place getters.

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Posted by Sarah Vella on May 29 2018. Filed under Sport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry