Back from his wedding and honeymoon, he showed no lessening in fitness to join early leaders Ashley Smith and Mitch Carrington and then overpower them for a comfortable sprint finish win.

 Carrington finished second and  Smith third on a day where Olivia Saunders won the C Grade from Greg Clarke and Peter Nash while her father, John Saunders, won second grade from Dave Menzies and Darren Taylor.

“It was a good fast race, pretty windy,”  Spokes said.

“We had good numbers again – it’s  just hard to get everyone here at the same time.”

 Carrington said  Spokes was too good in a race made tougher by the wind and its direction.

“It was totally opposite to last week,” Carrington said of a previous race he had won.

“It made it a lot tougher.

“Ash jumped out to break away in the first 15 minutes. 

“He was out there seven or eight minutes, maybe 10 laps. 

“Then I jumped across and joined him for five or six laps before Sam joined us,” he said. 

“He then tore our heads off. 

“We were struggling to stay with him and were  just hanging on. 

“He won the sprint pretty easily.

“He is a class above the rest of us ,” he said of the Drapac professional who is now in training for the Australian National Road Race Titles, a race in which  he finished fifth to Heinrich Haussler last year at Bunnyong.

The national championship returns to Bunnyong in January, something Spokes has been in training for.

He will also head to Bright in Victoria  for a Drapac team training camp from December 8 to 22.