News – Lessons for NFTO in Motherwell

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Round 4 of the Pearl Izumi Tour Series in Motherwell a learning experience for NFTO

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News – Lessons for NFTO in Motherwell

Round 4 of the Tour Series in Motherwell came to a disappointing conclusion for NFTO.

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Whilst the break stayed awayless than 15 seconds up the road, NFTO’s Steele von Hoff won the bunch kick for fourth with Ed Clancy (JLT Condor) just behind. A sign of what may have happened had NFTO been able to bring back the break back.

The new venue in Motherwell had a nice and open circuit and provided plenty of places to move up in contrast from some of the technical circuits the team have had to race so far in the series.

“It was quite aggressive from the start” explained the Australian Circuit Champion Steele Von Hoff. “I haven’t been feeling the best all week so I took a bit of a back seat and left it up to the other boys to follow the attacks for the first half an hour” he added.

“I had an overshoe issue I was trying to fix when the original break went and whilst I was faffing about, I missed the break go up the road which was annoying”, said Hank (James Lowsley-Williams).

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Hank chasing an early break

Steele explained post race, “Once we missed the break, Hank got on the front and managed to bring it close enough that Dale could bridge across. He just didn’t quite get there when he had a mechanical and had to switch bikes.”

Another who had a go at getting across was Jonny McEvoy. “It was unlucky with Dale as he had a mechanical just as he was reaching the break, which put us on the back foot a little bit. But we knew if it would come back, we’d have Steele there for the sprint” explained Johnny.

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“Unfortunately that ended up being the break of three that stayed away with One Pro, Madison and JLT, most of the stronger teams represented, the burden lay on us to bring it back for the win. After Dale came back, I tried to get across on my own and slip across.”

“I did a couple if laps off the front, but then got bought back”, said Johnny. “It was all pretty active so I then followed moves and then towards the end we tried to bring it back for a sprint for Steele.”
“Zach and I, we just tried to nail it back, added Hank “but with three of the strongest teams strong men up the front, it was hard and we were trying to drive it back with Johnny looking after Steele, so that left just two people”.

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Steele explained the chase “We tried to do our best to fix the situation but after the race you always talk about how you can do it better. We made a tactical decision that in hindsight we would change. Zach would be working on the front doing a pull, then Madison would attack then he would get dropped and then Hank would go up and do a pull. And I told Johnny to stay with me and to look after me and lead me out in the final. As it was only 20 seconds we thought it would come back.”

“Then, by the time it was coming back it was getting late with just five minutes to go so I sent Johnny up the front, but by that stage, Zach and Hank were out of legs and then it was just Johnny. We all just sort of individually chased which we could’ve done better if we’d have worked as a unit we could’ve pulled it back and contested the win”.

“It’s the way that the race paned out. I made a mistake in holding Johnny back, and trying to save him for the bunch kick for me.”

The DS Dave Povall explained it was a learning day. “We learnt a valuable lesson today and I think as long as you can do that in every race and take things away when you don’t win, at least it makes you stronger, said Dave Povall.

The team now head to Durham chasing that first win in the 2015 Series.

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