Pauls Race Report

Headed to wagga with HD's latest heavy hitting recruit Chris Timms or Timmsy or Crash, fresh from his collision with the back of a parked car a week or so prior - poor car. Bloody long drive 6.5hr - all good fun though. Sat was a 107km hcap, me and timmsy were off at 9min which i thought was reasonable. Weather was freezing less than 10 degrees at the start at midday! Wind was blowing like a tornado as we headed out the road. Timmsy got dropped at about 30k and it wasnt long after that i got spat as well - if you missed the wheel in that wind it was all over - GONE! Tried to join the block and scratch bunches but with the heavy hitters from MG and Caravello there wasnt much hope. Found a group and just rode it home - very dissappointed. Timmsy almost tempted me to sample the nightlife of Wagga but no my body is a temple!

Sunday was a 70k hcap and on the way Timmsy and I debated whether we would be back next year, based on yesterday - not likely, team HD morale was low! The start again was freezing, 5 degrees this time at 10am - at least the wind had dropped. We started off 11min which i thought was quite generous and off we went. The group worked well together until about 15k to go when people started to sit on - a few selected words "have a go you !!@@@### w!!@#$%" from yours truly and people started getting angry - just the way i like it! We were starting to reel in the bunches ahead with about 10k to go - the mind started racing, go early or wait. 5k to go now and somehow Timmsy got dropped, spewing! I sat on for about 1k to have a break and collect my thoughts. About 1k to go it didnt look like we would catch them then a few boys did some great turns to bring us within striking distance. In what can only be described as a miracle the bunches ahead of us moved over as about 5 or 6 off us hit them at warp speed with about 500m to go, with about 300m to go I knew it was now or never, i put my head down and somehow i managed to pull off the win by 2 bike lengths or so! I coudlnt believe it, $350 and a nice miss universe style sash to go with it - eat your heart out Jennifer! Certainly the biggest win of my career, even bigger than those weekly wins over Ebbo and Gaff at the club phoenix sprints on the way home from racing. To top it off I even got food poisoning on the way home and havent been able to train for 3 days! Its certainly a hard weekends racing but one that I would recommend to all HD members of all levels.