Day 3 @ Hurstville Oval report. 
What a great night hosted by the St George Cycling Club.
It is hard to not enjoy yourself when you are surrounded by such a beautiful well-kept venue. Again it was windy conditions in the late afternoon and a very cool evening that greeted riders to what many describe as the most beautiful outdoor velodrome in the world. The atmosphere was fantastic from the hospitality of the St George club to regular flybys put on by Sydney International airport who decided to use the Oval lights as a marker point for landing planes.
Larger fields started the warm up scratch races which really turned in to warm up smash fest with each grade stretching the field out early. Each Grade except for D Grade that is, who seem to have a gentleman’s agreement to roll around 3 abreast until the bell lap. They will be punished with a shorter event tonight.
D Grade The handicap’s over the last three days have slowly been refined and there are no presents out there. In every wheel-race the scratch marker made it into the top 5 but none higher than 3rd place. This produced some surprise but well deserved victories. In the C Grade event it was Michael Clement and little Nick Whymark fighting it for the win. Crowd favourite Nick crossed the line with a painful smile on his face taking his first win for the series.
The start of a wheel-race In the women’s competition it is still indeed Rebecca Wiasak who is dominating. Rebecca seems to be enjoying the company of her ACT team-mate Ailie McDonald. Lizane Willmott has the speed to beat Rebecca but lacks the endurance. Renee Covington is riding very smart to pick up points when opportunities arise. But very impressive are the young riders in this division who have been serving out an aggressive attitude in their competitions.
The young girls are waiting for no-one Once again the standout rider of the meet was St George CC’s Nick Yallouris with a number of great rides but none better than his round 3 sprint. Up against known speedsters Smedley, Young and McMillian. Yallouris astutely moved forward from the back on the inside as the pace quickened. Every time he progressed the door would continually close momentarily than re-opened allowing Nick to stutter his way under. Finally he reached the front when Ben Young started to close the door and was seriously surprised to see Nick pop up underneath. This was the crucial moment, had Ben continued down he would have legally halted the aspirations of Yallouris, however the shock of seeing someone there hesitated the big Newcastle rider and a drag race was initiated. Nick held out all three sprinters to the enthusiastic applause of the stunned crowd.
