Another win for Velo

Hot off the press! Toby Neave has scored his first win for Southdown Velo at Portsmouth track in the E123 race. Toby writes "After lapping the field twice in a group of 6, and taking loads of prime points, the bunch was all together for the last lap. I was on the front (safest place to be) waiting for the sprint to open up when Shaun (Smart) let rip from the back and gave me the best lead out ever, helping me win by a few lengths from track man David Sinclair.

Mark (Trevis) did well to help control the pace, and only finished a lap down in what was a very aggressive race."

Congratulations Toby. Let's hope it's the first of many.

Club night

This coming Sunday, 2 September at 8pm is the club night in Chichester. Location to be agreed. Lloyds Bar in City Gate has been suggested. I will ensure a decision is made and communicated beforehand.

Racing at Angmering

I finally made it to Angmering Raceway on Tuesday to watch our youth riders in action. The Raceway is an oval slightly banked track about a quarter of a mile round. Within it is a twisty and undulating circuit which is where they hold the youth races. I think it is best described as challenging. It demands good bike handling skills and if you don't posess them you have to learn fast. I was very impressed by the general standard.

The numbers have been as low as five starters, but last night there were about twenty with a fair few from Brighton way. One girl comes down from Newbury. Due to the numbers and the tightness of the circuit the riders were split into two groups by age. They all took part in a number of events: scratch, time trial and devil. It was certainly exciting stuff as the circuit allows little room for error.

Southdown had Chris Burningham, Jospeh Marchant and Alex and Benjamin Stirling. They all gave their utmost in the short but hard races.

Young Benjy provided the highlights of the evening when he overshot a bend in the time trial and mounted the grass bank before hopping off and quickly back on again to finish. A career in cyclo-cross beckons. In a later race he dived past a competitor on the inside just before the line, lost control and hurtled off the track onto the grass before completing a neat somersault! :D Ace Benjy! Fortunately his bike was not damaged. Oh, and yeah he was OK too. :))

All of the riders at Angmering will eventually be more than prepared to move up to the bigger fields of senior racing.