Dressed as the grim reaper, hardly anyone noticed the hooded Trevor as he haunted the Smith Park shadows while covering last week’s Halloween Track Special – Here’s all the spooky details..

💀 Track Report 31/10/18

by Trevor Scallopini

Donny has included some nice variety in recent weeks with the inclusion of the Team Sprints in place of the handicaps. These team races are highly competitive and give riders the opportunity to race together at speed over 2-3 laps. Held right up to Olympic level team sprints are a great addition to the rider’s skills and enhance spectator value. The racing has been extremely close with the teams formulated on a handicap basis and producing some scintillating finishes.

While stars like Brandon certainly add power to any line-up, the time differences between the combinations were minimal, and the podium results were as follows:

1st Brandon, Gaby, Jim 1:29.3 2nd Reynolds, Huyser, Keetman 1:29.87 3rd Bates, DHutton, Carson 1:30.7

With no motorbike, riders adapted to the conditions and the scratch events were still just as much value. Brandon winning the first from Greg “531” Reynolds who continues his strong form and might be our next Aussie Masters contender with this kind of performance.

The cusp of Movember saw the Flying Wombat hit form pulling off a terrific B grade treble. Riding his favorite scary bike the planets aligned and he became an indestructible 2nd Division monster taking out everything bar the team sprint.

Scott Carson made a welcome return from injury to get back on track with a win in the scratch from Mort and Proctor. James and Mark hold a strong formline so it was little wonder a few spectators were seeing Scott’s effort as a taste of more to come. Scotty also won the C Keirin.

It was of course fitting on the All Hallows Eve that Donny created the Frankenstein of cycling events – The Reverse Snowball, or as the Dutch say – “uitwerpselen in de sneeuw”. Specifically designed to confuse, torment and punish cyclists, this backward scoring points nightmare pushed athletes to the edge of their sanity and then some. Riders could be seen before their races performing weird rituals in the vain hope of summoning disc wheeled demons of years gone by in their quest for counter- intuitive scoring skills. (geez that was a mouthful)

Jonesy became the master of the dark arts in the evening’s finale and called the races as if he was broadcasting from the gates of hell. It was classic fire and brimstone oratory that saw Brandon winning the A grade with 30 points from Luke with 11. Meanwhile Josh Rayner completed his trick or treat with 34 points from Doc Reid on 19.

In the juniors, newcomer Archie Reid was welcome addition to the ranks and took out a nice debut win in the timed handicap. Jackson Granger also got the job done for the boys in the second division.

However the girls posted some very good times in the TT with Siena again showing her dominance against the clock.

Special mention to Roarson Henwood, this young man did a great job beginning his transition into open grades and we look forward to seeing his continued improvement.