AFTER a week of 40-plus temperatures, the Footscray Cycling Club’s Max Campbell Memorial was held in cool and overcast conditions at Altona’s Drake Boulevard on Sunday.
Conditions provided a perfect day to honour a man who raced and volunteered at the FCC for over 50 years in rain, hail or shine.
The A Grade race was over as soon as it began with a casual Adrian Hanson rolling off the front of the bunch on the first lap, only to be joined by Dom Dudkiewicz.
The pair rode off into the distance and were never reeled in.
Dudkiewicz has been in unbeatable form of late but was still surprised that such an early two-man breakaway survived.
“We started the race and I saw Adrian Hanson and Jason Costin just riding, not attacking off the front, and then we got around the top corner and I saw Adrian just casually increasing the distance from the bunch.
“I was about to jump when Adrian went, so as I went past Adrian I said ‘let’s do this’. So he got on my wheel.
“We cut a really hard couple of laps and probably got 20 seconds on the bunch and then we just kept going.
“I think the first few laps averaged 46-odd kilometres an hour. I thought that it was too early as we had to do this for over an hour but we just kept working and kept the lead at about 30 seconds.”
In the final laps, behind the dynamic duo, the situation could only be described as carnage, with attacks breaking the bunch up into broken lines of riders, with Graham Carlson trying to bridge the gap or at least ensure third place.
Dudkiewicz came out of the last corner and passed Hanson, taking the win with Hanson a few bike lengths behind, followed by a lonely Carlson who took third place.
In other results, Trevor Perry claimed the B Grade race while Gerard Zammit and Vladimir Djric were victorious in C Grade and D Grade respectively.
