Fulton on 17min

Press, 9 June 1978, Page 24

Fulton on 17min

By

RAY CAIRNS

Russell Fulton, winner of the Timaru to Christchurch cycling classic three years ago, will hardly be able to believe his good fortune this week-end. Good enough to be placed on the break mark in the season’s first amateur open cycling race, the Syd Poore Memorial less than three weeks ago. Fulton is on 17min in the DB Harbour race tomorrow.

He is, the way the handicaps are listed, ranked only forty-eighth in the field of 66, or in the front third of the race — swift elevation for the rider who was on the mark in front of scratch in the Poore Memorial, and missing from the field for the open hills handicap. He must be considered the favourite for this attractive race, which starts in Halswell and finishes at McCor-

macks Bay. The lesson should have been learned from the hills handicap — much the same race, only in the opposite direction — that this is an exceptionally fast course, and the five scratch riders will regard despondently their chances of catching up 30min.

The field for the Amanda Wilks Shield race —20 km longer than the 60km round the harbour and bays — is virtually identical and the bunches and marks are also much the same, only rather longer from the middle marks out. But there must be a strong chance of their being revised after the DB event, being sponsored for the first time, and there should be a look at the scratch mark. Bruce Brunton is on the back mark for the first time, perhaps a shade fortunately,

[but some thought should I have been given to placing Blair Stockwell there by himself, at least in the Harbour race. And there could be some asking for scratch on Sunday, with the race carrying the Canterbury open 80km title for fastest time. This race starts and finishes in Roberts Road, Hornby, and takes in a large block of Paparua.