July 2005. Croft Park Final Places and the retrun of Strong as an Ox

The mantra of all good road racers is “never give up”. So it was great to see JP ‘Strong as an Ox’ getting back in the thick of things at the Simon Terry Memorial RR at Beckwithshaw. ‘Strong as an Ox’ clearly wanted to put the record straight having been given a baptism of fire at the Otley Town Centre Crit in June. He managed to finish a very respectable ‘in the pack’ on the tough penny pot lane circuit. All we need now is to convince ‘Strong as an Ox’ to falsify his age so that he can enter some LVRC races and before he knows it he’ll be team leader with the Hammer and Hippo working as domestiques!

One notable addition to the YRC road racing team was Rodney Tordoff who was beginning to appear at LVRC races. This markedly increased the number of regular YRC LVRC entrants by 33% and it meant that the Hammer and Hippo had someone else to talk to at the post race buffet. Notable LVRC action was at the Barton Wheelers RR where the Hippo dropped his pump mid race and nearly brought down the whole pack. As it happened this was the closest that the Hammer and Hippo got to any major action as they both missed the break because they were either sleeping (The Hammer) or would never consider putting in the effort required to get in a break (The Hippo). Both finished in the pack.

The Hammer was still trying his luck at some of the more treacherous town centre crits at Colne and Clitheroe while the Hippo was trying the more sedate circuit at Hetton Lyons. Needless to say they were having no podium success. In fact the only place where they were managing to show their form was at Croft Park with an occasional prime point and a 5th spot in race 12 of 15 for the Hippo. So with some help from guest appearances by Broken Hub Bairstow and Web Master Mike and his hit squad (Mike Kershaw and Nigel Baldwin) some of the YRC racers managed to get themselves listed in the final GC. Red Mist Grant was placed 43rd, The Hammer was 13th and The Hippo was 6th. In fact the Hippo‘s 6th spot on the GC was in jeopardy right up to the final race. So he enlisted Mike and his hit squad to block any moves by his main rival Paul ‘deceptively fast’ Gittins (Ferryhill Wheelers). Unfortunately, ‘deceptively fast’ was deceptively dropped on the last lap which meant that Mike and the hit squad were last to the post race cakes. However, it didn’t matter because in true road racing tradition the Hippo and Hammer had handed over their prize money to the rest of the YRC team – which amounted to a cup of tea and a cake. The financial loss did not bother The Hammer and The Hippo because they knew that it would only be a matter of time before corporate sponsorship deals would be arriving in the post.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the Croft Park series was the lack lustre performance of Tony “One Cleat” McCullough (Ferryhill Wheelers) who finished a lowly 25th in the CG and way off the prize money. The lad had shown so much promise at the beginning of the season but clearly was succumbing to the allure of beer, fags and pies. He’d do so much better with an extra cleat (p.s. don't forget the citation fee as it helps to fund our annual club luncheon).