Hello Vets,

In the Bleat this week;

  • CASH ONLY THIS WEEK
  • Dairy Flat working Bee
  • Team QOUN Crit race
  • From the Desk of the Handicapper
  • Event Traffic Controller’s Course – 7 December 2019
  • Racing this Week
  • From the Race Committee
  • Race Reports

Please send me your contributions at: TheBleat@actvets.cc

Ian Morton

CASH ONLY THIS WEEK

NOTE: The Square Tap and Go payment option will not be available on this Tuesday due to a staff shortage!

Dairy Flat working Bee

Last year Nick Boylan put a large amount of effort into ensuring the Dairy Flat course was safe for racing prior to directing the event. This year we need to relieve Nick of this task.

We will be running a Working Bee on Saturday afternoon on 7th December at 4:00pm. Bring your work gear and gardening equipment along to help clear the course. Liquid refreshments and snacks will be provided. The more people helping out, the quicker it will be.

Team QOUN Crit race

Team QUON will be running the Crit at Stromlo on 10th December. More details of the event to come.

Note that the Grade start sequence will vary for this week as follows;

Grade Time Week 09 Race Duration
E/F/G 5:50 28 min 2 laps
B/D 6:25 B 42m 2, D 38m 2
A/C 7:15 A 42m 2, C 38m 2

From the Desk of the Handicapper

Promotions

Only one person for promotion this week;
Ian Morton E to D

Rob Langridge
Handicapper

Event Traffic Controller’s Course – 7 December 2019

An Event Traffic Controllers’ (ETC) Course will be held on Saturday 7 December 2019 from 09:30-16:30. The venue for the course will be: Office of Regulatory Services (TCCS Depot), 255 Canberra Ave, Fyshwick. ACT 2609 (Enter the Training Room via Lithgow and Wiluna Streets).

An ETC qualification is required in order to be able to marshal at Club events in the ACT in any role requiring the stopping of traffic. We rely on a healthy stock of ETCs in order to be able to run road races in the ACT, and members’ ability to race is conditional on helping out on an occasional basis. The Club also provides payments to its marshals for their service at races, which is a nice way to subsidise your future race fees. The Club has negotiated with the ACT Government to provide the ETC course at no charge to the Club or members! It is completely free! There is also a live mentoring component which you can book to do at your convenience, enabling you to discharge your Club marshalling duty at the same time as you are finishing off the qualification. So, please, if you are not already an ETC, sign up for the course.

Members who already have completed the ETC qualification do not need to undertake the course again. The ACT Government has recently ruled that the qualification does not expire, and shortly all existing ETC card holders will be issued with new cards reflecting this.

If you can attend, please contact Blended Learning International (our training partner), CEO Lisa Materano on Mobile: +61 438 134 558; or e-mail: lmaterano@blendedlearning.edu.au. Copy the Race Committee (race.committee@actvets.cc) on the e-mail so we can keep track of which of our members have enrolled.

Thank you!!

RACING THIS WEEK:

Tuesday, 26th November: Stromlo Criterium – Graded Scratch

Reminder: CASH ONLY for tonight.

Where: Stromlo Forest Park
Sign on: 15 mins before scheduled start time wearing your registered number.
Race Description:
B/D 5:50 B 40m+2, D 35m+2
E/F/G 6:35 28 min + 2 laps
A/C 7:10 A 40m+2, C 35m+2

Race Director: Conan Liu Contact: Email: emailconanl@gmail.com    Ph  0421670303

Marshals: Michael Hanbury

Wednesday, 27th November: Track Racing

The Program for Wednesday is;
– 5.30pm – 6.00pm: Warm-up and free practice;
– 6.00pm – 6:20pm: 200m Fly
– 6:20pm – 6:50pm: 10 Lap Snowball
– 6:50pm – 7:10pm: Italian Pursuit

Sunday, 1st December: Old Federal Highway

Where: Turn left off new Federal Hwy (dual carriageway) after Bywong Rd. The intersection is signposted to Gundaroo and approx 9 km after Sutton Rd overpass. Park in gravel pit on corner of next intersection about 100 m in from highway.
When: 9:00 am.
Sign on: 15 mins before scheduled start time wearing your registered number
Race Description:
Gravel Pit – Tulip Farm. ABCD – 3 laps. EFG – 2 laps.

Race Director: John Thorn Contact: Email: jpthorn@gmail.com    Ph 043 240 2221

Marshals: James Curran, Darren Garnon, Tim Minehan, Peter k Taylor, Polly Templeton

From the Race Committee

New RMS

The update of RMS, which works better on mobile devices, has been implemented. Bookmarks to the old RMS no longer work. You need to follow the updated links to the Race Calendar and Results from our home page at actvets.cc.

Upcoming Race Officials Roster

With the implementation of the new Race Calendar, the publication of the upcoming Race Officials Roster in the weekly Bleat will be discontinued.

Rostered race directors AND MARSHALS are shown against each race.

Please check the calendar (http://rms.actvets.cc/calendar). If your name is followed by TBC (To Be Confirmed) you need to contact the race committee (race.committee@actvets.cc) as soon as possible to either confirm your attendance or to request a swap.

Empty race directors and marshal positions are denoted as Vacant. Some marshals for races in the ACT need to be Events Traffic Controllers (ETC) and appear as Vacant ETC.

Please review the vacancies for upcoming races and email the race committee with events you would like to help out at, rather than wait and be asked to help at a race you wanted to do. Races cannot happen without members contributing to make them happen.

Ian McVay
Race Committee

RACE REPORTS:

Track Racing – 20th November

With a threat of 32 degree temps that would render the concrete bowl of the Bundahdome a cauldron of infernal heat, the apparent temp of 26 degrees (and light winds) was a welcome relief to the 18 riders who signed on to race. Having said that, the very low humidity together with evidence of late flowering ‘fluff’ trees ensured the dreaded ‘sprinters cough’ wouldn’t be too far away!

As usual, the evening’s racing started with the A Grade 8 Lap scratch. With 8 riders cleanly off the fence, the first 3 laps proceeded quite routinely until Michael Langdon decided to put down some watt bombs to gap the bunch but found that Martin Graham was in hot pursuit and dragged the bunch back up to Michael in the next lap. At this stage, the heat did take its toll with John-Paul DeSousa dropping off the back and the bunch actually splitting into two the very next lap.

With 2 laps to go, Craig Kentwell was also suffering and dropped off the second group with Michael, Martin, Hamish Anderson and Dougal Torrence forming the front group and starting to dice for finishing position. At the bell, Michael launched again with Martin and Hamish chasing and changing positions with Dougal hanging on. At the line, it was Michael (1st), Hamish (2nd), Martin (3rd) and Dougal (4th). A little way back David McCook crossed in 5th then it was a lonely Ben Davis (6th), John-Paul rescuing a position and crossing in 7th with a spent Craig over the line in 8th. [Martin was the winner with the Sprinters Cough Cup for the night].

The B Grade 8 Lap scratch got off the fence cleanly with the 10 riders working well and safely rolling together. Making a welcome return to the season, Steve Hirsler completed his pull on the front on lap 3 and when he thought the last rider had passed, descended from the stayers line to suddenly find Tony Beasley down in the Sprinters Lane. You could hear Tony’s ‘words of encouragement’ to Steve from the other side of the track.

With 4 laps to go, the field had stretched out considerably with another returning rider, Steve Jones (self-relegated to B Grade after 20 months off the bike), starting to reposition around Ross Scutts and a strong looking Bruce Griffin and Ken Birch. At the bell, Steve surprised himself and took off on the back straight streeting the field to be clear by 20 metres at the finish for a clean set of heels in 1st. To their credit, Ross, a repositioned Tony and Bruce gave it their best and finished in that order 2/3/4. Ken held on for a valiant 5th with Gefsco James Newhouse silently crossing in 6th, Phil Anderson held on for 7th, Ian Drayton in 8th, a spent Phil Coulton 9th and Steve ‘Welcome Back to track’ in 10th.

The next event for the evening was the 2 Lap Standing Start Time Trial. The stopwatch doesn’t lie. This would be a new event for some, a grinding challenge for others, tactically perplexing and/or a chore for the rest : or more’s the point, any combination of those!

With Michael sitting the event out (and helping with the timing averaging – thanks!), Dougal was first away (as he had to leave after the event) and reeled off a 55.10s to set the first benchmark – that lasted two riders until Martin secured a 54.65s. From there, times were high 50s when John-Paul cracked, what looked like a very easy, 52.90s to be followed later by Hamish with the exact same time! All A Grade were less than 1m with B Grade (not including Steve who pulled a 54s) between AeroBar Tony with 57.25s and Phil (Anderson) with a 1m01.90s. Full credit to Steve too who pulled the second fastest time for regular B Grade on his return.

With only three events over the evening (scratch, TT and Italian), some at signon were wondering why there wasn’t at least one more event to make it 4 as there was plenty of daylight. However, at the conclusion of the time trial (where there were 17 riders to process), riders were glad there wasn’t another event on the program other than the Italian Pursuit!

So, after a brief break, with Italian teams selected (sans Michael, Dougal, Bruce and Steve), riders briefed and only a gentle breeze, there was to be no environmental start advantage for Team 1 over Team 2 as there is (at times) with any sort of headwind for Team 2 on the back straight. And right on cue at the head of Team 2, Phil Anderson takes no prisoners and pulls out an absolute flyer from the get go with a well forming group behind. Team 1 took a little while to get organised and into a rhythm that unfortunately persisted for most of the race as gaps formed then closed over a number of laps as clearly riders by this stage were feeling the night’s proceedings.

Whilst Team 2 efficiently went about their business, a team ordering miscalculation within Team 1 meant Craig, on lap 4, gapped Steve by a number of bike lengths as the latter eased up to protect a suffering Ben who was the last rider before Team 1’s anchor, John-Paul. In retrospect, a now exposed Steve should have called Craig to ease up too as Ben had nothing much left in the tank and Ben still had two laps to ride after Craig had finished his turn! This made the anchor task for John-Paul somewhat difficult and in the end irretrievable as Steve pulled off & Ben commenced his lap being clearly watt depleted. This was in stark contrast to Team 2’s second last wheel, Martin, who was now on full gas ahead of Team 1’s anchor, Hamish, the latter who scooted across the line on a short gear to secure the win for Team 2 by an easy 30 metres.

Another great evening of racing – and given the lack of humidity, most riders were spent and very glad to close off the night’s racing.

[BTW: And at the conclusion of racing, Mr Jones arrived at the decision, via no solicitation nor coercion, to return to A Grade next week.]

Thank you again to the dry-humoured Simon Whitehead for being on site as the first aid first responder.

Major place getters were as follows:
8-Lap Scratch: (A Grade) Michael Langdon, Hamish Anderson, Martin Graham. (B Grade) (Steve Jones(A)), Ross Scutts, Tony Beasley, Bruce Griffin.
2-Lap Standing TT: (A Grade) Hamish Anderson=John-Paul DeSousa, Martin Graham. (B Grade) (Steve Jones(A)), Tony Beasley, Steve Hirsler, Ross Scutts
TT Times: (A Grade) JPD 52.90; HA 52.90; MG 54.65; DT 55.10; BD 56.17; CK 57.10; DM 58.11 (B Grade) (SJ 54.00); TB 57.25; SH 57.90; JN 58.30; RS 59.00; ID 59.02; BG 59.20; KB 1.01.15; PC 1.01.32; PA 1.01.90;
Combined Italian Pursuit: Winner Team 2 (Martin Graham, Ross Scutts, Ian Drayton, David McCook, Hamish Anderson, Phil Coulton, Phil Anderson)

Season Point Score Update:
Hamish Anderson 74, Ross Scutts 72, Tony Beasley 67, Martin Graham 67, Phil Coulton 65, Phil Anderson 61, John-Paul DeSousa 61, Craig Kentwell 57, Dougal Torrance 56, Warwick Wilson 54, Michael Langdon 54.

Thank you to Simon (1st Aid) and Jarrah Anderson for officiating.

Alec Millett
[Ed: Apologies for incorrectly attributing last week’s report]