Davison grabs final stage win as Kerby takes Series

The 2012 Queensland Road Teams Series sponsored by Triple Play and City Subaru, came to an exciting conclusion yesterday, when Luke Davison from Team Budget Forklifts powered to the line to beat team-mates Ryan Macanally and Sam Witmitz in a 90 minute criterium finale before a large crowd at Murarrie in Brisbane.

A passionate Luke Davison told CSN that the Budget riders had just come off a very solid week of training leading up to the Gippsland Tour.

“The boys rode to perfection and we are very thrilled. It’s always great when you get a win, but it’s even better when you see everyone contributing towards that win.

Luke said he enjoyed riding at Murarrie.

“It’s very flowing, very quick, but as I said it all comes down to all the guys riding in unison and following the moves because it’s very difficult to bring riders back on the course like this if they gain more than a hundred metres.

Luke indicated that Team Budget Forklifts did have a game plan on the day.

“Ideally we wanted to try to get to the end and practice our lead-out going into Gippsland and to perfect this, and I think in training as well as in racing, we’ve shown that we’ve almost got that sorted. So hopefully we can replicate this in Gippsland. Yes, we’ll take a lot of confidence from out win in this stage.”

Unfortunately Luke hasn’t been part of the NRS Series up till now, having had the misfortune of being involved in a serious crash recently, so he is looking forward to taking part in his first NRS Tour for the year, especially joining a team that is experiencing a huge amount of success in 2012.

Meanwhile, for overall Series winner, Jordan Kerby (Eclipse Pro Cycling), it was just a great relief to ride out the final race without encountering and nasty mishaps.

“I’m really happy to win the Series” Jordan told CSN after the event. “Apart from the NRS Series this is probably one of the highest levels of racing in Australia, so it’s great to take it out.

The last few months have proved extremely rewarding for Jordan, who puts his effort in the Time Trial at Gatton in Round Three as one of his highlights. “ I reckon this was one of my stand-out performances for the whole series”.

However, life on the bike hasn’t been all roses for Jordan.

“With all the other racing I do as well, it’s been up and down for me this year. As far as the Series went, I rode OK for the first two, then went pretty well for the third, and the fourth round was fairly OK as I was just getting back on the bike after a bit of a break. And today, I felt like I was getting back on top.

For the Series winner it was very much a case of staying out of trouble, and staying upright for the 90 minutes of racing.

“Basically this was the biggest struggle today. It was very dangerous out there with everyone jostling for position. I just had to stay up the front as much as I could, and to keep an eye on Marc Williams from Budget and Corey Edmed from Balmoral.

“On the last lap I was pretty relieved above anything just to cross the line with all the skin still on my body.”

Kerby took out this year’s Series with 465 points, 45 points ahead of Corey Edmed, and a further 4 points to Marc Williams.

Other competition results were as follows:

Sprint jersey: 1.Alex Wohler (Team Down Under) 244pts 2. Luke Davison (Budget Forklifts) 219pts 3. Sam Witmitz 136pts

KOM jersey: 1. Kristian Juel (Erdinger Alkoholfrei –Downer Edi Mining) 368pts 2. Peter Herzig (Budget Forklifts) 350pts 3. David Melville (Data#3 Cisco) 182pts

Young Rider jersey: 1. Jordan Kerby (Eclipse Pro Cycling) 465pts 2. Luke Davison (Budget Forklifts) 365pts 3. Alex Wohler (Team Down Under) 330pts

Over 35 jersey: Darren Condon (Campus-Avalon pb Champion Systems) 319pts 2. Stuart Cowin (Data#3 Cisco) 168pts 3. Timothy Dalgliesh (Team Mainline) 133pts

All the action from the Criterium finale (Copyright Peter Ford CSN):