MITCH Carrington pedalled his way to another criterium win on Sunday.
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Carrington claimed his third victory in as many weeks, taking out the combined A/B grade Tamworth race.
It followed success in the last Tamworth criterium and the Armidale Autumn Festival criterium the previous Sunday.
Numbers were a bit down for the Tamworth race with Carrington and Fraser Ashford the only two A graders.
As a result, A and B grade raced together with B grade having a lap start.
“We caught them about half-way through,” Carrington said.
“We were going hard to catch them.
“Then when we caught everyone.
“Fraser put in a few hard attacks (and) I had to work hard to get across to him.”
But he managed to and on the second lap he made his move.
“I hoped his attacking had taken it out of him,” he said.
It seemed to, with Carrington putting about 20m on him heading into the final lap.
John Saunders was the only B grader able to stick with them and also managed to take advantage of a tiring Ashford, sneaking into second.
In the earlier C grade race Peter Nash won from Jess Saunders and Josh Nash.
Carrington was coming off of a big weekend after racing in the Orica Kermesse in Newcastle on Saturday and then Armidale on Sunday.
“It’s been really good,” he said.
He finished just outside the top 10 at Newcastle. “There was a breakaway of five up the road,” he said.
“We had Sam Layzell from our (Paradice Investment) team in it.
“We had to sit back and let that go as we had a rider in the move.”
Carrington ended up first in the bunch sprint after another group had broken away.
He then backed up on Sunday to get the better of Inverell’s Dylan Sunderland and Paradice teammate Dane Crawford in a three-man sprint.
“It was a really good race,” Carrington said.
“We (Paradice) had Carsten Chapman. He raced about half the race by himself.
“With about 10 minutes to go three guys jumped off the front.”
Sensing it was dangerous he jumped across to it.
He said it was a good race to win.
“I know its not an NRS (National Road Series) race but there was still some good riders in there,” he said.
He was hoping to get a late entry into this weekend’s State Criterium titles, but won’t be short of racing if he
doesn’t.
On Tuesday (April 1) he’s off to Adelaide to ride for the Paradice team in the Adelaide Tour.
The tour runs from April 3-6 and consists of two road stages, which will be between 130km and 150km, a kermesse and a criterium to finish.
“This year the team is doing a few more races,” he said.
Adelaide will be the second round of the NRS with the series getting underway in Perth on the weekend.