NEARING the halfway stage of Saturday’s Stockinbingal Fair Cycle Race, Cootamundra’s Joel Finucane was feeling the pinch.
As he and the fellow members of the 4.15 minute bunch were climbing the hill to the turnaround point on Old Temora Road the signs of struggle were beginning to emerge.
“We were starting to shed some numbers and I
honestly thought I was about to get dropped,” Finucane said.
“I was at the back on the bunch and was doing it tough.”
Finucane managed to hang onto the pack as they made the turn, and less than 30 minutes later he flew across the finish line victorious, giving him his first significant win since taking up the sport two years ago.
He honestly thought he’d never get there.
“When we made the turn we could see the big bunch (containing riders from scratch, block and 2.30min marks) coming up the hill and I thought we’d get caught for sure,” he said.
“They couldn’t have been more than two minutes behind and there was still the second half of the race to go.”
That’s when Finucane and his bunch mates took the bit between the teeth.
“The bunch in front of us wasn’t that far away and we knew if we could reel them in we might have enough numbers to keep the scratch boys at bay.”
Powering through their turns, Finucane’s group achieved their goal just as the field made the right hand turn into Dudauman Road.
The enlarged group now contained riders from the 4.15, 6.45 and 9.00 minute bunches, with one lone rider, Wagga’s Brett Campbell out on his own some 50 metres in front.
Campbell wasn’t the danger, however the elite riders at the back of the field were.
It’s a long, straight stretch of road to the finish line at Stock and sensing he needed to take matters into his own hands, Wagga’s Ashley Humbert, a member of the contracted Drapac Porsche team took off in pursuit.
He was quickly joined by Canberra’s Sam Genge and, while they were taking time of the lead bunch, the
distance to the finish was getting less and less.
“We had no idea of what was going on behind us, and we weren’t getting any messages from the side of the road,” Finucane said.
“We just put own heads down and bums up and
continued working hard towards the line.”
With the lead group containing a number of other Coota riders, they all combined to give their pea Finucane the best possible passage to the line.
“I got a great lead out from Wardy (Mark Ward) and Notty (Hamish Nott) and it worked out perfectly as I managed to hang on by about a bike length.” he said.
Finucane held out Albury pair Jamie Ruddy and Ken Payne, while in a huge boost for the Coota club 15-year-old Pat Meyer produced an excellent effort in his first major event to finish fifth.
Riders from the 4.15min and 6.45min bunches
dominated the placings and had it not been for their combined efforts over the final quarter of the race, Humbert may have taken home line honours as he crossed the line just 20 seconds after the leaders.
The victory gives Finucane a share of the lead in the 2009 Tour de Riverina, for which the Stock Fair was the second stage, and he’ll be lining up for the next stage in Wagga this weekend for the annual Butch Menz Memorial.
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