The race has approximately 10 kilometres of climbing, followed by some great descents and fast, flat sections and is always guaranteed to end with an interesting finish.

Riders were sent off in groups of four and five, with the scratch group of three conceding 18 minutes to the first rider.

Scratch riders Mark Luscombe, Greg Newton and Greg Connell rode strongly and caught the group ahead within 10kms.

This created a large group, a bit too big for Luscombe, who put in some great tempo hill-climbing to drop them.

Murray Bracknell and Mike Ruttico tried in vain to hold on, but the pace was too fast.

The worst place to be caught by faster riders is up-hill and this happened time and time again, as the scratch group swept through the field.

The group of Richard Dunn, Corinne Bracknell, Steve Lee, Shaun Welch and Lucy Wellstead were caught and passed just near the top of the last hill.

Only Welch, continuing his good form from last week, put in a brilliant downhill chase, hitting speeds of over 70kmh and managing to join the scratch group.

At the turn to South Coast Highway, only one group stood in the way of Newton, Luscombe, Connell and Welch.

Graham Forte, James Watmore, Geoff Cass, Ralph Flowers and Jim Lie only had two minutes 20 seconds of their 13-minute start left, and with 12 kilometres still to go, and the group behind travelling close to 50kmh, it was going to be a close thing.

They made it, just, with Jimmy Watmore winning the sprint in his second comeback race after breaking his hip in the March criterion series.

Forte came in second and Cass third.

Newton had the fastest time and an average speed of 36.5kmh.

Riders cooled down with cake and coffee generously supplied by club member Murray Thornton, who had also done the hard work of laying out the course earlier in the day.

– Greg Connell.