A LAST-LAP crash cost Ilkley teenager Freya Whiteside a potential victory at Pontefract Racecourse.

The 16-year-old Shibden Cycling Club member had sat on the wheel of women’s race leader Vicky Peel (Hope Factory Racing) for several circuits of the spacious venue until coming off her bike in an off-camber section.

That put her out of contention for victory in a female elite sense but she did claim third place overall and won her female junior category.

“I was semi-happy with my race,” admitted the Ilkley Grammar School pupil. I felt good and was with Vicky for the first three laps but hit the floor on the last lap.

“I got thrown off my saddle in an off-camber corner and all my weight was on my front wheel so I just hit the floor, twisted my handlebars and had to pit for a spare bike and lost all my speed.

“The front two were gunning it (Eldwick’s Sophie Thackray beat Peel by two seconds) and I had no chance of getting back up to them.”

Whiteside, who is 17 on Thursday[November 10], is racing in Belgium this weekend with Glusburn’s Cat Ferguson for what Whiteside describes as “a fun weekend."

After that Whiteside will race a mixture of National Trophy and Yorkshire Points races before heading back to Belgium for some festive races over Christmas.

No-one had a more arduous day at Pontefract, however, than Ilkley’s Stefan Macina (Shibden Cycling Club), who won the men’s veterans’ 50 category race before heading straight back out for the men’s elite race, where he finished 28th.

After enduring almost two hours of combined pain, Macina said: “

“I have absolutely no idea why I did that.

“It seems like a good idea when you enter both races on a Monday. You think that it will be good training and you don’t think that it will be that hard.

“But when you are halfway through the second race you are thinking ‘Why am I doing this?’ and those hurdles didn’t help as I was getting cramp and gingerly stepping over them, but it was good.

“The conditions were different for the second race when the rain came down and made it a bit more interesting, that bit more slidy, that bit muddier.”

As for the first race of the day, Macina said: “It was a tough one and Mike Burdon and myself got away and it was nip and tuck.

“He was really strong through the technical bits and was leaving me for dead there and it just came down to a bit of luck on my side near the end.

“We had to pass three back-markers and he went left and I went right and he got stuck in traffic, but it could have gone either way and I didn’t look back.”

Macina added: “There are a lot of flat bits but then you have to slow down for the corners. It is hard work as you don’t rest or recover on the flat bits as you are gunning it. I need a lie down now.”

Burdon, 54, from Burley-in-Wharfedale, said: “I got a good start and led for the first lap and was then working with Stef to get away from our two rivals.

“By about half-distance we were just racing each other for the win, and it came down to the penultimate corner and traffic got in my way so I didn’t get the chance to sprint for the win.

“It is the strongest I have felt for four or five years but Stef won fair and square.”

Burdon is on the comeback trail after breaking his neck last year mountain biking on Ilkley Moor.

“It was just an evening  out with my mates and I hit a rock. It was just one of those things. I had an operation and spent three months at home after suffering nerve damage but I am OK now.”