THE Footscray Cycling Club was at the Victoria University circuit in Hoppers Crossing for the last summer criterium before the road season and with 40-plus degree track temperatures the season ended with a bang.
A-Grade riders were most civilized for the first 10 minutes with the pace gradually building up rather than the usual ’Ali’ punch to the face.
But the usual frenetic flurry of attacks then commenced with riders being pushed to the brink in the crosswinds for lap after lap.
At least half the field were dropped in the next 15 minutes at which time the remaining nine riders backed the pace off for a short respite.
That was until the unstoppable juggernaut that is Miles DaCosta ramped up the pace and tried to break the race up even further.
In the last 10 minutes the Flying Dutchman, Marco Duys, threw caution to the wind and tried to maintain a solo breakaway but with a stellar effort from DaCosta and Danny Bellis he was reeled in with two laps to go.
Bellis stayed on the front and played lead out man to the sprinters, with Dom Dudkiewicz maintaining his perfect winning record and taking the win from Paul Anders and Brett Hickford.
Later, Dudkiewicz found it easy to sum up the day’s racing.
“Hot and tough,” he said.
“I raced at the Bendigo International Criterium last night and it was stinking hot up there and I felt like I was on fire, so to come out again into the heat today was a struggle. It was hard work coming up the straight into that headwind but it was a great way to end the season.”
A quality field assembled for the B-Grade race, and in similar fashion to A-Grade, numbers dropped through the attrition caused by the extreme heat and the strong wind.
In the end it came down to a bunch sprint and it was guest rider Peter Jones who just managed to hold off the evergreen ex-pro Bob Shannon, with Tim Robertson coming through for a well-deserved third.
In the day’s other racing, Merrick D’Souza won the C-Grade race while Tom Gray took out D-Grade.
