Club legend Kevin Laffy generously took on the role of timekeeper and, in return, he also took on the role of puppeteer.
To add to the action, he selected riders who would be required to lap the field to win.
A-grade
In A-grade it was youth versus experience as Lenny and George Griffiths gave a lap to the experienced pair of Francis Lias and Troy Griffiths.
After a ‘fork in the road’ moment a couple of months ago, it was good to see Troy back racing.
From the get-go it was George and Lenny driving the pace to put some distance into the bunch. Lap after lap, the pace was on.
Troy and Lias were stretched but hanging on.
The gap started to open as Lenny and a particularly aggressive George drew away.
Lias and Troy worked well together and kept the gap under a lap at the mid-way point.
By the 20-minute mark, Lenny and George had the pair in their sights, and the catch happened quickly from there.
Lenny powered on while George suddenly had a desperate Troy holding his wheel in a lovely family moment — he didn't want to concede the lap to his youngest son.
Lenny was the comfortable winner, while the battle for second was won by Troy, who pipped his son George, who finished third.
B-grade
The contest in B-grade required John Brian, Matt Dobeli, Dazza McKemmish and Claire Goodman to finish a lap in front of Dave Oman and Russell Jeffreys for the win, a potentially tough ask in an even field.
Rather than the usual smooth laps and slow grind of racing, the format forced the four riders to push, not knowing if they could last the distance, nor if it would create the desired result of gapping Jeffreys and Oman.
The surging pace produced an early victim as Goodman dropped. After some strong efforts on the front, McKemmish also dropped.
While Oman was drifting back, Jeffreys was holding firmly to the wheels of Brian and Dobeli, even content to do a turn or two on the front.
A long way from the end, Brian broke clear, but without support he quickly returned to the fold.
In a final effort at the 20-minute mark, Dobeli and Brian rode clear as they passed the finish line.
A few laps more and they had a half-lap lead, but Dobeli was fading, leaving Brian to go it alone for the last four or five laps.
In the end, it wasn’t enough as Jeffreys held within a lap to win from an impressive Brian, with Dobeli rounding out the podium.
C-grade
There were just the three riders in C-grade, with last week’s winner Zenon Gawronski joined by father-daughter duo Ray Hamilton and Karen Griffiths.
In classic C-grade style, riders settled into a comfortable pace, perhaps even lulling Gawronski into a false sense of security as in the blink of an eye Hamilton and Griffiths were gone, leaving Gawronski to ride on alone.
With a sense of theatre, Griffiths kept engaging with the start-finish line crowd, which urged her to stretch the old man.
In the final lap, that is precisely what she did as she rode to victory from her father Hamilton and Gawronski in third.
Thanks to Dazz and Russ for helping set up, Kevin for being race director and photographer Richard Bailey.
Well done everyone for helping with the fundraising efforts.
EMCC sends its best wishes to Ben Welch from Welch Builders as he embarks on his hopefully seminal run.
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