By JARROD POTTER
SIX hours of grinding gears and pumping the pedals left Platt Racing team victorious at the Victorian HPV Series.
Over 100 entrants registered for the third round of the Victorian HPV Series, held at Casey Fields Criterium on Saturday, as athletes from schools, elite teams and social squads alike converged on the venue to battle the undulating 2.2-kilometre course.
Instinct Racing Community’s ‘Predator’ vehicle jumped out of the blocks to take an early lead before Platt Racing’s ‘Trump Trikes’ stormed to the front to battle it out with Wattle Racing’s ‘Whipstick’ and ‘Predator’ for the race to the flag. Trump Trikes would stay out in front and extend its lead by the final flag at 4pm, grind out 131 laps of the venue to fly to the flag at an average speed of 48kph.
Whipstick and Predator would trade second place throughout the last hour before Predator returned fire and took second on the line and claimed the Community category victory ahead of ‘Head Bangin’ Billy Goats’ (114 laps) and ‘Thankyou’ (114).
St Margaret’s School claimed the Female category with ‘Ceto’ (94) while Frankston Primary School’s ‘Overtaker’ (95) took out the junior title while ‘Asphalt Melter’ (113) took out the Open category for Woodleigh School.
Rounding out the wins were EDEC’s ‘PaceMakers’ (104) and ‘Fire Breathing Rubber Duckies’ (106) in the Veteran and Senior division respectively and Girton Grammar School’s ‘Intrepid’ (106) in the middle division.