Ian Butler wrote:
Thread title is funny if you've seen this series. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118421/

tsmoha wrote:


Don't know this series, but Method Man as a guest star sounds great enough

North West Tour (Preview #2)

Not yet 100% confirmed!

Mark O'Brien (Budget)/ Winner of Tour of Toowoomba, probably the best climber in the NRS. Defending champion of the North West Tour as well. Top-seed!

Adam Semple (Satalyst)/ Current NRS-leader, who already proved to be competitive in a mountainous race like Mersey Valley (where he won). Top-motivated!

Nathan Earle (Huon-Genesys)/ Won his preparation-race Preston Mountain Classic and needs to start winning in the NRS as well. Great climber with strong support by Haig/Dyball.

Matthew Clark (Charter Mason)/ Debut for the young gun and his Charter Mason/Drapac Development Team. Known as one of the better climbers in Australia's regional scene, watch out!

Jack Haig (Huon-Genesys)/ Well, what else can be said: Jack delivered in all of the NRS-events so far and already proved his strength in tough stage-races.

Paul Agorir (Kenya)/ We don't know much about the Kenyan team, but Agorir is said to be a decent climber, almost signing for Continental Team Kenya Airways this year! A dark horse?

Bernd Sulzberger (Drapac)/ Drapac will at least go for the stage-hunting here (Luke Davidson in the flat ones), but they also need a good GC-result badly!

Michael Cupitt (Budget)/ Did well last year and knows how to climb the Siding Springs Observatory. Great support for O'Brien, who can go on his own on a good day.

Nathan Elliott (Target Trek)/ Finished well in the Preston Mountain Classic and is capable of going for a surprise here.

Lachlan Norris (Jayco)/ Struggled to do anything good in his recent races, but he's a good climber and therefore a good bet for the overall here.

North West Tour (Day 1, 8.5km ITT + Flat Criterium)

The North West Tour (NWT) kicks off with a prologue-style ITT and a flat criterium, both held on same day.. The timetrial ain't too long, but given that the 4th stage will be the crucial one, a climber with good TT-skills could gain valuable seconds today!

Narrabri ITT/


Stephen Vicelich (Oz Cycling) set the first notable BT with 10'28"... a time hard to beat, it seemed, as he sat at the top of the provisional ranking quite long!


Euride Racing was always expected to be strong in any TT: Harry Carpenter delivered today, beating Vicelich by 2" for the new lead.


James Hepburn (GPM) came close, but the last rider with real chances today could not beat Carpenter. He came in as 2nd, still a great result!

None of the expected GC-contenders except of Jack Haig (+ 0.06) could finish in today's Top-10.. Will Haig be Huon's new captain for this race? Nathan Earle was only 3" slower though..

Narrabri Criterium/


A group of 5 escapees was caught right in time and it was mainly Oz Cycling Development Team and GPM Data#3 to lead the bunch into the final lap! A sign of what sprinters feel good? Ben Grenda (Oz) is one of the most consisten sprinters in the NRS so far..


..and Grenda is indeed in the mix for today's second stage: in the leading position with only a few moments left is Budget Forklift's young gun Jesse Kerrison, followed by Grenda and Jack Beckinsale (Huon)! Paul Van der Ploeg (Satalyst) can't follow anymore..


A great and quite dominating win for Kerrison! The 19 years old sprinter shows his talent by beating another young gun: Beckinsale comes in 2nd ahead of Grenda! Top-favorite Luke Davidson (Drapac) on 6th today.


No change in GC's Top-5 though: Carpenter (Euride) will wear the blue leader-shirt on Stage 3, another flat stage, but more tricky than this crit.

North West Tour (Stage 3, Flat, 106km)

A flat stage from Bingara to Narrabri, but it's a rather tricky one. Several short climbs and difficulties may lead to an unexpected outcome, even though the sprinters will be the favorites of course.


4 riders in the break of the day, including Team Kenya's Ekiru. A first showing of the team, which hits Australia's roads for the first time!

We're already entering today's final 25km and their gap is already down to 1'33" with the peloton chasing hard.


And the high pace and challenging course make for a tough race now! Several falls happen at the same time, we're in the final 10km:

ProTeam Downunder's captain James Szollosi was the first to hit the road and almost the entire team drops back to support their GC-contender!


More drama and this time a top-favorite is involved in a crash: Nathan Earle (Huon)! With only 10km to go and the pace of the bunch being brutal, that's the worst moment to go down! Bad luck.


Of course the other teams can't take care of it and so it's no surprise that Drapac and Oz Cycling kept the pace in order to catch the escapees.

Which they did. So it's going to be a bunch-sprint with a more and more stretched-out pack!


And here we go, already on the final metres: it's a mix of pure sprinters (Davison, Grenda, McCarthy, P Van der Ploeg) and puncheurs like Brodie Talbot (Kangaroos), Semple (NRS-leader) and GC-favorite O'Brien sprinting to the line!

Talbot, McCarthy (Euride) and Van der Ploeg at the front..


Brodie Talbot takes out the stage, an unexpected winner and a of course a great win for the Racing Kangaroos Cycling Team!

McCarthy with a nice 2nd for Euride, ahead of top-sprinter Luke Davison (Drapac), who might have hoped for more.


Group Earle/Szollosi - the "crashed group" - lost 5'25" today! Really tough one for Earle in particular. It looks like he has to give the captain's role to teammate Jack Haig or Jai Crawford now. Tomorrow's crucial mountain stage will show.

So after an eventful third stage, Earle might have lost any hopes for the GC-lead, which is still held by Carpenter (Euride), at least for one more day.

miggi133 wrote:
Am I the only one that thinks that Earle should just call it quits this season and concentrate entirely on the Victorian Road series? Afterall, he was far from spectacular in the NRS Events... Plus the fall today... I dont see him having a shot at this years NRS Crown.
Haig on the other hand looks to be the perfect leader for Huon in the NRS...

miggi133 wrote:
Am I the only one that thinks that Earle should just call it quits this season and concentrate entirely on the Victorian Road series? Afterall, he was far from spectacular in the NRS Events... Plus the fall today... I dont see him having a shot at this years NRS Crown.
Haig on the other hand looks to be the perfect leader for Huon in the NRS...

sutty68 wrote:
Paul Van der Ploeg has been very consistent

I am very surprised he isn't in the lead

North West Tour (Stage 4, Mountain, 118km)

The crucial stage of the North West Tour: a tough hilltop-finish at Siding Springs, which is more like a mountain, actually.. Defending NWT-champion Mark O'Brien is one of today's favorites, while Huon-Genesys may go for either Jack Haig or Jai Crawford, who finished within Top-5 here in 2012.


8 riders built the break of the day, spending the whole day at the front.. most notable names were Rhys Pollock (Drapac) and former NRS-winner Will Clarke (Euride).

None of them is know as a decent climber though, but of course it's always worth a try.


Believe it or not: like yesterday, where Earle crashed, it's again a Huon-rider down the road!

This time it's Jack Haig! The young gun and GC's 9th crashes with 41km to go, just ahead of today's only KoM-sprint. Wow, that's bad luck for the team!


Haig is brought back to bunch by two of the team's strongest climbers Crawford and Dyball! The question is, wether he lost too much energy or not.. also we don't know if he may suffer from the fall.

Tough times for Huon here..


So it ain't surprising that it's Jai Crawford, who now tries to show the colors of the team in a better way:

Crawford (Huon) and
Matt Clark (Charter Mason)

attack the peloton with 12km to go, just as the bunch caught the early escapees! The favorites will set the agenda on this 10km long finish-climb!


7km to go and Clark sets another attack, he dropped Crawford easily..

..behind it's Agorir (Kenya), Britten (search2), Sheppard (search2) and Trent Carman (Downer EDI) trying to follow, with the peloton already going into pieces (45 riders remain in the main group).


The attackers couldn't go clear yet: 4km to go and especially Budget-Forklifts looks in control of the race so far. Three of their stronger climbers set a high pace and we have a new leading group of 7:

Cupitt, Evans, O'Brien (Budget)
Crawford (Huon)
Clark (Charter)
Sheppard (search2)
Elliott (Target)

A bigger of 17 riders is 33" behind, in there are:

Sulzberger, Lapthorne (Drapac)
Semple (Satalyst)
Norris (Jayco)
Haig (Huon)

Nathan Earle is already dropped by this big group, so obviously he suffers from his crash yesterday!


3km remaining and now NRS-leader Semple tries to catch up to the leading group, followed by Norris!

In the meantime, Drapac's duo Sulzberger/Lapthorne and also Jason Spencer (Charter) managed to move forward..


Semple couldn't join the leading group though and Team Budget keeps dominating the race:

Cupitt and O'Brien pace hard and the leading group goes into pieces:

E1 (6)	<= 39" =>	E2 (4)	<= 1'06" =>	E3 (14)
Cupitt		Lapthorne		Semple
O'Brien		Sulzberger		Norris
Evans		Sheppard		Britten
Crawford		Spencer		Haig
Clark
Elliott

You may have noticed, that both Cupitt and O'Brien are going to establish another gap!


Yes, they do! 500 metres to go and the Budget-duo powered away, with now O'Brien also dropping teammate Cupitt!


Mark O'Brien takes out the queen-stage by 23" on teammate Michael Cupitt! Wow, what a Budget-show after Huon's bad luck today!


And it's getting even better: it's 1-2-3 for Budget, as also Karl Evans makes today's podium ahead of Clark and Crawford, losing 49" on O'Brien.

Huon's Jack Haig (13th, + 2.35), NRS-leader Semple (14th, st) or Nathan Earle (35th, + 8.12) couldn't compete with the best climbers today.


O'Brien is the new GC-leader, of course. And it's a Budget-podium with only one flat stage left!

Crawford at least sits on 4th place for Huon-Genesys, with Matthew Clark completing the Top-5.

sutty68 wrote:
What a race to remember for the Budget Forklifts Team

tsmoha wrote:


A race to remember for Budget... and what a race to forget for Huon

Still one stage remaining, so stay tuned!

miggi133 wrote:


Fixed that for you there
Huon really lucky with Crawfords effort even after bringing Haig back to the bunch...