Around Brunner results.

Michael Fitzsimons leading Mike Kingan, Barry Tinkler and Andre Chappell (obscured) across the finish line for 4th place overall and 1st Vet in the Around Brunner race.

Interestingly the results placed Barry and Andre both in front of Fitzie, and even gave the Vet prize to Barry, and listed Mike K as being picked up, whatever that means, however as the photo shows we know who really placed where.

Hopefully next year they will get the results right.

By all accounts otherwise a superbly run event, helped no doubt by a fantastic West Coast day.

The official results are listed as: Ashley Whitehead 1st, Andrew Williams 2nd, Ross Stewart 3rd, Barry Tinkler 4th, Tom Pearce 5th, Andre Chappell 6th, Johnathon Gee 7th, Richard Ussher 8th, Michael Fitzsimons 9th, Mike Kingan picked up, Tracy Clark 1st Vet Woman and a very creditable 56th overall, Annaliisa Farrell and Neelu Memon 6th Tandem (1st all woman pairing) and a superbe 27th overall.

The actual results should read: Ashley Whitehead 1st, Andrew Williams 2nd, Ross Stewart 3rd, Michael Fitzsimons 4th (and 1st Vet), Mike Kingan 5th, Barry Tinkler 6th, Andre Chappell 7th, Tracy Clark 1st Vet Woman and a very creditable 56th overall. Annaliisa Farrell and Neelu Memon 6th tandem (1st all woman pairing) and a very creditable 27th overall.

Looks like Tracy is over the bug that laid her low in Round 3 of The Benchmark Homes Series.

Roll on Round four where Paul will be racing in the Overall leaders jersey, Tracy will be leading the newly formed womans competition and Neil will be pressing hard to get back the Over 40's jersey.

Round 3 and 3rd Bio

Brian Fowler (over 40), Ed Barrett (U23) and Paul Odlin (Overall)receiving their leaders jerseys at Round 3 of the Benchmark Homes 8 race series.

I know some of the team were a bit dissappointed in their performances but in the overall context of things the weekend was still a success for us.

Mike Fitz., Neil, Sam and Johnathan all did sterling work at the front and helping both Paul and Annaliisa. Sam punctured fairly early but got back on quickly when Johnathan dropped back to help him back, great effort by both. Thats what team riding's all about.

Tracy started the race but pulled out early on as she was extremely unwell, she probably shouldn't have even started, but that just shows her absolute determination, as she has won two of the three rounds so far she wanted to keep going.

A break went away very early on in the race and we had 1 rider, Mike Kingan, in it. It also contained Steve Elden & Nathan Hood (Benchmark), Stu Lowe (Lowe & Ass.), and Chris Karton and Brad Hudson (Kelford/Reiker), this group looked like they would be the race winners especially after getting out to a lead of over 4 minutes at one stage, however the bunch eventually got it's act together and pulled back the defict very quickly and before we knew it the race was all back together. Another group then went away containing Mike again along with Anthony Chapman (Lowe & Ass.) and Ed Barrett (Benchmark), Mike and Ed proved too strong for Anthony and spat him out fairly quickly, at the finish Ed proved too strong for Mike. Paul came home in the bunch for 6th place overall, enough to give him outright leadership overall for the series.

So to cap it off: Mike 2nd overall on the day, Paul 6th overall on the day and now the series leader and Annaliisa 1st women home, continuing the Teams domination of the womens section.

That provisionally gives us 3 riders in the top 10 overall, 3rd placed team overall ? Neil 2nd in the over 40's comp ? and no one able to challenge Annaliisa or Tracy.

The Team has so far gained 7 of the available 15 podium spots, is there any other team who can claim the same ?

Roll on Round 4.

3rd Bio:

Michael Fitzsimmons:

Fitzy is one of the peleton heavyweights, a popular wheel to follow in windy conditions, aims to get a top 15 finish....and finish every race, so far so good even if the results say otherwise. (Round 2 results suggest Fitzy had a dnf, but he actually came in ahead of quite a few riders that were listed as finishing).

2nd rider bio

Neil receiving the leaders jersey for the Over 40's winner in Round 1, a jersey which he retained after Round 2.

Got a bit of time before opening and having a couple of days off (Easter) so I thought I would post the second of the bios.

Annaliisa Farrell:

Annaliisa has been racing for 13 seasons and in that time she has won numerous club, Centre and National titles along with two Oceania Titles.

Her lastest addition to the trophy cabinet was the National Criterium Championship.

Annaliisa is currently being kept very busy as not only is she competing in the Benchmark Homes series, she is also racing pretty much every weekend, doing her own training and also training with Neelu Memon (http://road-to-beijing.blogspot.com) to try and get to the Beijing Paralympics, they recently competed in the Australian Track Champs where they won a silver medal in the 3000 Pursuit (tandem).

Stayed tuned for more on the team, but not till after Easter, hope you all get to have a bit of a break and enjoy it.

Introduction

Hi, please forgive me for I have sinned, I am a blogger virgin, so please bear with me as I will probably make a few stuff ups.

This blog has been created so anyone and everyone can keep up to date, so long as we keep it up to date, with the performance, thoughts, ramblings etc from our Race Team.

Our Team is made up of the following: (l to r)

Michael Fitzsimmons, Annaliisa Farrell, Tracy Clark, Neil Sutherland, Sam Horgan, Dave Sullivan, Paul Odlin, Mike Kingan, Johnathan Stockwell, not pictured are Ross Mackintosh (Team Manger and sometime rider) and myself (Peter Turnbull) as Team owner? mechanic and apparently mascot?

I will endeavour, when I get time, to post a small bio about each of our team members.

We have had two races already of the newly named Benchmark Homes 8 race series and boy the team has certainly showed a few of the others how to race.

We have so far got 5 podium places out of 10, Tracy has been the first female in both rounds so far, Neil gained and retained the Over 40's leaders jersey and Paul won the last round, we finished 3rd in the teams standings and although we haven't had confirmation yet we think we probably got 2nd in the teams standings in the last round.

When I have time I will put all? of the results up.

Onto the first of the bios.

Tracy Clark:

Tracy started racing in 1990.

In 1992 she was selected to represent NZ at the Oceania Games, she was again selected in 95, 96 and 97 where she won a bronze medal.

She has finshed on the podium at numerous nationals, gaining Gold in 92?, silver in 97/2005 & 2006 and bronzes in 94 & 96.

Tracy raced in the USA in 95/96 taking part in the longest stage race for women The PowerBar Cycling Womens Challenge 10 day stage race.

She has competed in international feilds in NZ, racing in the Hamilton Womens Tour and World Cup events gaining a 6th place.

Tracy has ridden for NZ in the NZ Womens Tour in 95/96 and 97.

Tracy raced in the UK in 2003 placing 16th Overall in the UK Womens Road Nationals.

Just to prove how good she is she also does a spot of Mountainbiking, competing in the Pro-Elite mountainbike series in 99 & 2000 with best a place of 5th, and consistently placing in the top 10 (probably more like 5) in her age group in any events she does.

A few of her other career highlights are:

Holder of 2 Canterbury TT records

Winning Womens Queenstown Tour

Winning Womens Nelson Tour

Winning Waikari Classic

Winning Womens Hanmer-ChCh / ChCh-Hanmer

Look for other bios of team members to follow.

Letting my big brother know what's happening

This from my e-mail to Peter (my big brother) sorry if it is a bit Neil focussed but Peter doesn't really know you guys.......by the way this is my first ever blog entry...I feel connected!

1. Le Race
I couldn't match the top pace going up to the Kiwi but did along with others manage to stay connected to the front of the race at the Kiwi....just not in the running for KoM points. Then was comfortable riding across Summit Road and down to Motukarara with my main 35-44 age category competition Reon Park going strong in my bunch and Chook in the chase bunch. Looking good so far. It was hot and I had water bottle people at the Kiwi and at the Hilltop (necessary support on a hot day). Our bunch did not go all out to Little River and that allowed Chook's bunch to catch us, so 30 odd riders staying out of the wind and conserving energy heading towards Cooptown. The race blew apart pretty early on the hill to the Hilltop. I was struggling as the 11th rider in the 11 strong front group who were laying it down and smashing everone else. I just could not hold on though and got spat first. Two others did too and I passed those guys before the Hilltop, still feeling good. So Hilltop in 9th place and starting to hammer Summit Road. I caught Paul Odlin (team mate and normally team leader, but we had sort of equal billing for Le Race) who saw me and allowed me to catch him . Pretty soon after we got together Hayden Godfrey and Al Crossling caught us and we four worked together until Godfrey lost contact on a hill. I could see a bunch of about 8 (Chook included) chasing us. Then there is a steep pitch and I guessed Paul was going to be in trouble so I sat on Crossling's wheel and hoped Paul would keep up. He didn't so I said to Crossling we gotta hammer it with everything we have otherwise we will get caught and off I went, Al managed to get ahead of me once before he dropped off on my next pull at the same time as we passed "The Nightrider" Nightingale from Brisbane (who had wrapped up the KoM points and the $2K that goes with it and was blown up) and from there I was solo going hard out and feeling good. I did the descent into Akaroa and crossed the line in 7th and 2nd Vet. Reon who fell off duelling with Ed Crossling on the descent came 2nd and 1st Vet. Chris Jenner was 5th and it was very cool riding with him, just to observe his pedalling style and when he moved.
2. Benchmark 8.2
130 k's around the North Canty foothills. I started with the plan to shadow Chook and Kircher and not to allow either into a break without me. The guys from LDC were doing a great job enabling me to slip into the paceline near the front whenever I needed to. After 20k's Chook jumped into a break so I bridged too and six of us were away (Me, Chook, 2 benchmark, 1 subway, 1 Hartys). We lost 1 benchmark and the hartys rider on some rollers after Chook attacked and I countered and continued with four of us. Just holding our advantage at 20 to 40 seconds for around 20 k's. Everytime Chook pulls through he comes though accelerating and stays on the front for twice as long as anyone else, he was always after me in the rotation and made it difficult for me because after my pull I would have to accelerate to catch the next wheel. After about 20 k's of that three riders were bridging across (benchmark, Joe Chapman from Hartys and Paul Odlin-LDC!). We allowed them to catch us and off we went and our gap slowly grew to a minute then two minutes, all the while Chook putting in the big fast turns and Paul doing a power of work. At around 100k we dropped one of the Benchmark riders who really wasn't contributing and then I found myself off the front within a km of a series of creek valleys and rollers that I knew were going to be a tough point of the race. So I thought I would stay away to allow Paul to rest and to try to ensure I did not expose myself to any accelerations or attacks that would cause me to loss contact. 5kms later I was through the tough stuff when I was caught. Paul had ridden second wheel that whole time while the others looked to eachother to do the work. Crossed the Ashley River at the Gorge and more small hills with attacks on each and each time I had to fight to get on after being left by the initial surges. I survived and the gap was out to 3-4 minutes with 20 km mainly down plain and down wind to go (looking good for a top 6 finish!). Last hill before Cust is Summerhill (not too high, easy grade about 1 km uphill) Paul attacks and Joe Chapman manages to get on Paul, the other three do too before the top, I am dropped but within a short easy hill and 3 km of downhill flat to the finish. Ahead Paul repeatedly attacks going finally at about 1km. Joe and Chook look at eachother until Chook jumps but Joe manages to get his wheel and they are shutting Paul down, but Chook pauses to get Joe to do something, Paul keeps going hard, Joe and Chook look at eathother, Paul, Paul, Paul, 1st!!! I roll through for 6th about a mimute behind the action and a minute in front of a chase bunch. I keep my Black jersey (26 points now, Chook got 22 for 2nd place but had nothing from the first race).

round 2

gidday
if you read this then you have sucessfully created your user profile
top results from Tracy,Neil and Paul...well done
....neil is in the best form ever (he probably wants to race every day at present)
didnt hang around after sundays race as had to drop annabel and ella off at airport but am looking fwd to hearing some of the banter
cheers
fitzy