2:59pm Thursday 11th June 2009
By Dave Brown
The on-going televised Tour Series of town centre racing has had two of its 10 counting events in Lancashire this week, and there is still the opportunity to watch the Southport event this evening.
Our local professional rider, Ian Wilkinson, was winner of the Peterborough-based version last week and is now competing in the remaining events for his sponsor Halfords-Bike Hut.
Tuesday’s race this week was on a one-kilometre circuit close to the Sandcastle in Blackpool, and tonight’s one-hour event starts at 7pm, based on the famous Lord Street in Southport. Each event is shown on ITV4 at the same time 24 hours later.
There was no North Lancashire Road Club 10 mile at Edisford last week as many of the riders and helpers were involved in the Veteran’s 25 mile time trial at Cockerham.
Fastest ride on the evening was clocked by Pleckgate College teacher Dave Isherwood with an excellent time for the testing course of 57 minutes 34 seconds.
It was a close affair however with Walton-le-Dale’s Paul Fleming second only 7 seconds behind and Paul Warrener (Rossendale) third a further 3 seconds adrift, Peter Greenwood (Burnley) was 5th in 58-00, Fraser Snape (Blackburn) 6th in 58-07 and Duncan Park (West Bradford) 7th in 58-15.
When it came to time relative to age, no-one could get near the 1h 03m 09s of Egerton’s Frank Kerry, giving him a time of more than 21 minutes set for age of 73.
The midweek Rossendale time-trial was based on two laps of a hilly course near Bolton-by-Bowland for a total of 22 miles.
On-form member Paul Warrener smashed the course record with a time of 53 minutes 33 seconds. Second was Dave Collinge of Blackburn and District CTC in 55-27, with Derek Schofield (Rossendale) third in 57-10 and new Rossendale member Patrick Hamilton fourth in 59-57.
The Preston Wheelers 50-mile on the Garstang based course was used as the Club Championship for 2009 for the North Lancashire Road Club.
Fraser Snape not only took the title with his 2hour 2minute 7second ride but also took third fastest in the event and led his team-mates Rob Dickinson (2-03-18) and Bob Matthews (2-10-34) to the Team title.
The weekly Pendle Forest 10 mile was again won by Nathan Smedley of Nelson Wheelers with 23m 33s followed by Dave Metcalfe.
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