Two roads to take a title

GEOFF NEWLING

17/03/2009 9:09:00 AM

WAYNE Toomey and Mitch Carrington completed their Tamworth Cycling Club Criterium Championship successes with contrasting final round efforts at Riverside on Sunday morning.

Toomey led the A and B Grade riders into Sunday's third and final round and was able to take a sit in the pack and monitor any attacks that would have elevated second placed Peter Schulz above him.

Mitch Carrington had won the previous two C and D grade rounds and made it a perfect trifecta with a thrilling sprint finish win over Jeff Guider and Kieren Lewis.

"That was good," Carrington said Sunday morning.

'"It was pretty quick too."

The three placegetters were able to break away with two laps remaining and sprinted it out in a final dash.

"We were able to hold off the other riders and then I just got them (Guider and Lewis) in the sprint," Carrington said.

He is a relative newcomer to the sport and been riding just this season.

"I'm looking forward to facing the big boys," he said of an imminent move to A and B grade.

It means he'll also have to pick up his training with plans to join A and B grade criterium champion Wayne Toomey on what is about 300 to 350km per week.

That's how many kilometres Toomey professes to cover per week.

He was delighted with his A and B Grade club championships but said he had it pretty easy.

"Young Sam (Spokes) and the boys were trying to get Peter Schulz and John Saunders in a breakaway but I kept covering them," he said.

"Then Alan Spokes started an attack but I let him go because he didn't have enough points to affect me."

There were a few more attacks in what was an eventful race highlighted by a late spill from Alan Spokes when he hit a tree on one high-speed turn.

"It was a graceful fall," Toomey said.

Spokes had "bark" off elbows and knees as well as landing in mud generated from an overnight storm.

Wayne Toomey is now preparing for this weekend's Armidale Criterium, where he and about 10 other Tamworth club members will ride.