Wheelers success at inaugural Mackintosh Memorial Race

Lochaber trials hero Gary Macdonald claimed victory in the West Highland Wheelers’ inaugural Clare Mackintosh Memorial Race on December 30, as part of the club’s third race in the winter league.

Both juniors and seniors were in action for the race, which was run in memory of Clare Mackintosh, the late wife of Wheelers’ race organiser Vince Mackintosh, who sadly passed away on December 16. Vince and his son Campbell decided to go ahead with running the race in memory of Clare and in true reflection of her ‘just get on with it’ attitude. Owing to the success of this year’s event, next year’s race is already in the diary.

With hard climbs, technical descents and lots of mud, Vince and Campbell had set out a challenging route for the competitors, which made for a great day of racing.

Fourteen juniors competed in the 30-minute children’s race and 39 seniors, and slightly older juniors, competed in the main race. The winner of the inaugural Clare Mackintosh Memorial Trophy was Gary Macdonald with a time of 49 minutes and 43 seconds. Liam Moynihan managed to beat him to the finish line by 33 seconds but confessed to taking a wrong turn and was disqualified. Second place went to James Shirley and third to Joe Barnes, with Daniel Parfitt taking first in the juniors followed by Cory Muir in second and Evan MacDonald in third. Ailsa Pooleman took the women’s victory with Gill Barnes second and Marian Austin third.

The younger riders did as many laps of a short course as possible in 30 minutes. The under-12 girls finished with Isla Cant in first with 12 laps and Ruby Clark and Charlie Stewart joint second on 10 laps. Under-12 boys saw Alexander Pervan take victory with 15 laps followed by Kody Cummings in second and Aidan Baltrunas in third. In the under-eight girls Lily Cant took first place with 12 laps, followed by Mia Jackson in second, Charley Kennedy in third and Jessica Bamber in fourth. In the under-eight boys, Aaron Tresider took first with 15 laps beating his brother Kai who finished second, ahead of Archie Kennedy in third and Fergus Reid in fourth.

West Highland Wheelers would like to thank Vince and Campbell Mackintosh, who organised this fantastic cross country race.