McMurdo Wins Peter Clark Memorial Road Race

Sunday April 3 rd Hilton McMurdo of the Glen Parker Cycle Team became the first rider to win this prestigious Western Australian road race for the second time, the first being in 2001.

Since its humble inception in 1999 this event has fast become one of the premier and most prestigious road racing events on the Western Australian Calendar and for the first time saw international and intestate cyclists compete against the elite of   WA cycling.

This event honors the memory of Peter Clark who belonged to the Northern Districts Cycle Club of W.A. and was once our states Under 19 Road Racing Champion and whose life was tragically taken in a traffic accident whilst on a training ride just three months prior to his 21 st Burthday.

In excess of one hundred riders gathered to pay their respects to the memory of Peter and to compete in his race, with events being provided for A, Women, B & C and Under 17 grades.

The main event of the day was conducted over 108kms on the testing 10.5km Lake Jandabup Circuit in Wanneroo and was contested by 42 riders and it didn't take long for the first attacks to start with several small groups attempting to get away in the first lap. However, their efforts were short lived as the main field was very responsive to these early moves. It was halfway through the second lap that a significant break of five riders managed to attack and get clear including Hilton McMurdo, Steve Mouritz, Greg Rossiter, Cameron Meyer and Rhys Sherborne. With four teams represented the break was able to maintain a steady advantage that gradually extended to close to a minute. The ever increasing east wind was making the going even tougher and the chasing was left to those teams and riders not represented in the break.

The strength of the break was reduced when Sherbourne and later Rossiter were dropped but this didn't affect their momentum as the lead continued to hover around 45 seconds. With 15kms remaining, Chris Thompson attacked from the chasing bunch and was quickly joined by Nic Brown. They were later joined by Stefan Cecconi, Shaun O'Niel and Phil Rieman to form a group of five that soon became six when they picked up Rossitter. Despite working well together they where unable to make any significant gains on the leading riders had it appeared they'd left their run too late as the lead group of three had enough of a gap to comfortably hold on.

On the 1.5km straight to the finsh line it was McMurdo who led out the final sprint to the line and had enough strength to narrowly hold off Meyer and Mouritz. At 42 years of age he is showing no signs of "slowing up" and continues to set the standard for WA road racing. At 26 years his junior Cameron Meyer demonstrated that he is the future of WA road racing with a fine performance that belied his youth on a tough course in tough conditions.

Brown managed to escape the chase group in the final kilometers to finish fourth with O'Niell leading home Rieman, Cecconi and Thompson in the sprint.

In the women's event which was conducted over 66kms no single person was allowed to breakaway despite many attempts to do so by various riders. In the end it came down to a bunch sprint between five riders in Suckling, Cohen, Hansen, Sherborne and McLean and it was the strength of Rachel Sherborne that saw her narrowly win the event from Kerry Cohen and Sharon Suckling.

Results

A Grade

1 st        Hilton McMurdo Time 2.45.06

2 nd        Cameron Meyer

3 rd        Steve Mouritz

4 th        Nic Brown

5 th        Shaun O'Niell

6 th        Phil Riemann

Women

1 st        Rachel Sherborne Time 2.01.17

2 nd        Kerry Cohen

3 rd        Sharon Suckling

B Grade

1 st         Tom Nicholls  Time 2.23.14

2 nd        Anthony Brenzi

3 rd         Paul Brown

4 th         Glen Winnett

5 th         Ian O'Brien

C Grade

1 st         Mark Drabble  Time 1.53.29

2 nd         Keith Gill

3 rd         Jason Puls

Under 17

1 st         Travis Meyer   Time 1.12.22

2 nd         Tod Francis

3 rd         Ben Griffiths

The Northern Districts Cycle Club would like to thank all those corner marshals, line judges and the people who drove the lead and spares vehicles who volunteered their services on the day, your help was greatly appreciated.

This year and for the first time we donated a portion of nomination monies to Headwest which provides various services to people whose lives are affected from head injuries. We are pleased to announce that along with a donation from the Clark family for which we sincerely thank them we where able to donate $400.00 to this worthwhile organization.

Peter Walpole