Cycling race is wide open

It’s anyone’s guess as to who will win the Sinclair Packwood Memorial Race. You might as well take a six-sided die, write the top  contenders on each of its sides and roll it to determine who the winner will be. And you’d still stand a good chance that the victor will be someone other than the top six.

Last year was the exception to the rule when former Commonwealth medalist Graeme Miller was the prohibitive favourite.

He’s not on the island this year so it will be the regular crapshoot as to who will win the 12-mile sprint.

Veteran rider and former winner Greg Hopkins says the quality and depth of the field really makes this anyone’s race.

“I did the very first race…and I’ve never seen the depth of riders and the fitness of riders and the enthusiasm of riders. Whether or not that will transfer into the race this year is difficult to say. Potentially this could be a very explosive, exciting race.

“The occasion gets to a lot of people and they don’t perform to what the expectation may be or people may end up being more cautious than you’d expect them to be. Everyone wants to get down to Cedar Avenue with the leaders and that can make the race a little negative, but I really don’t think that’s going to happen this year. It’s going to be a very hard race this year.

“This year you could pick 10 or 15 names who at the end of the race on Monday you wouldn’t be surprised to see their name there. That’s just not normal.”

Wayne Scott’s won the Sinclair Packwood twice and in six tries has finished in the top three six times — he said that’s unlikely this year and he agrees with Hopkins assessment that the field is more wide open than normal.

“There’s a group of people who could win this. This will be Garth Thomson’s last race so he’ll be hungry for it. Scott Williams, Scott Hatherly, Darren Glasford, Arthur Pitcher — there are so many people that are riding well this year. There are easily 10 people that could win. It’s going to be a very interesting race.”

Scott said he’s not in good enough shape to cross first.