The Memorial Race is run to commemorate and honour a number of past club members. The Junior Race is the Curtis Dunn Memorial and the Seniors race for the Murray McLeay Cup, the Martin Verbeek Trophy, the Bunty Hewitt Cup (noting that there is a Bunty Hewitt Memorial Race on Thursday 25 October before the Tour of Southland) and the L.K Wilson Cup, over a course starting from McQuarrie Street and taking in the Catlins Highway, Mataura Island, Seaward Downs, Gorge Road and back to McQuarrie Street. It is a challenging parcours run over 106kms. Not for the faint-hearted!
Everyone raced their heart out, with the front markers working together strongly, with Erin Criglington taking the two hill primes along the way, with three remaining in the bunch to take out the honours, holding off the chasing bunch by 3 minutes. Andy McIntyre took out the overall honours from a fast finishing Erin Criglington, and Max Anderson. Bruce Jones led home the chasing bunch in 4th, showing a blistering turn of speed to head off Aaron Sinclair in 5th.
Fastest time went to Brad Tuhi, from Dillon Bennett, with Aimee Burns putting in a gutsy ride to take out the fastest women’s prize.
Afterwards, we enjoyed a fantastic prizegiving and afternoon tea at the Velodrome in our wonderful Champions Lounge (thanks to Julian Ineson!), and we all enjoyed listening to Graham Sycamore giving us a little bit of history on the people we were racing in honour of. Thank you Graham!
A huge thanks to everyone who helped on the day with Marshalling (Shirleen Rollo and Craig Sadlier – thanks guys!), Graham Sycamore, Tony Ineson, Robin Criglington, Waine Harding, Mike Cooper, Lindsay Jones our STMS, Tony Hammington, Ross Machjefski, Stu MacDonald and of course our own Bruce Ross, amongst all the other helpers, lead cars, follow cars etc. THANK YOU!!!!
Gorge Road Memorial Race – Results
1 Andy McIntyre – Murray McLeay Trophy for the overall win and the Martin Verbeek Trophy for the 1st C Grader)
2 Erin Criglington
3 Max Anderson
4 Bruce Jones (Bunty Hewitt Memorial Cup – 1st B Grader)
5 Aaron Sinclair
Letterbox Hill Climb – Erin Criglington
Gorge Road Hill Climb – Erin Criglington
Fastest Time: Brad Tuhi – (L.K Wilson Cup) – 2:30:27
Fastest Women: Aimee Burns – 2:50:25