There's always one word to describe the first race of the year. Ouch. This year was no different except the Ouch was earlier in the season than usual. Normally we don't start racing opens until late March early April.
All Gladstone riders - Matty, IJ and myself were racing in the same division for both days. Combined Elite B, Masters A and Women Elite A and we had over 60 in our field which made for excellant racing.
The crit on Saturday was at a blistering pace from the get go. It was a fast course with one hairy corner coming into the home straight. This corner claimed scalps in every division. Ours was no different. For me, the execution came earlier than I expected. Real early. Thunder held in the field until 15 minutes to go. Perhaps he would have stayed to the end if he hadn't gone for the Prime with Chris' Millen when there were no points up for grabs. Boys will be boys. IJ hung in until the end and avoided the crash on the last corner.
The M1 car was pretty quiet on the trip back to Toowoomba Saturday afternoon. There was a lot of soul searching happening.
The Kremese started early Sunday morning and was an extension of the course we had raced on Saturday. 8 laps of a 6.4k circuit with 8 climbs and some fast cornering. Having licked our wounds from the day before, we jumped on the start line ready for battle. And we got it. I managed to hang on until the half way mark. Given that its so early in the season - I was happy with this. A speedo check at my time of being spat out the back was an average of 38.7k/hr. Yep, no wonder I was hurting. After this, the race split into two big bunches. IJ in the lead bunch with Thunder in the second. It stayed this way until the end. IJ claimed 5th place and rode a great race. Matty came in with the second bunch and was glad to have saved some ego after the Crit.
Will M1 riders return to Oakey next year? Absolutely.
