HALESOWEN Cycling Club’s season has continued strongly with more wins for the team.

In a sport where one can easily go a season without a win (as road races typically have 80 or so riders and criteriums of 30-50 racers), Oli Dighton is the sixth member of the team to take top spot on the podium this season winning a bunch sprint at Stourport on Tuesday night.

Dighton’s good bike handling skills allowed him to take up a strong position on the penultimate bend of the race and then he accelerated past the leader coming out of the final bend to take the sprint with time to celebrate.

Charles Walker extended his lead in the Staffordshire Road race league with a fine third place on Thursday night in Cannock with team-mate Dighton also finishing strongly to record his first points in the league with seventh place.

Adam Holmes, a regular at the Halesowen Friday night track league, took a fine win by breaking free of the pack with about two miles to go with no-one willing to risk all by trying to chase such a strong rider down.

Walker is now well on his way to becoming a first category rider. Forrest Lambert-Humphries and Joe Hobbs have consistently scored points in this league and are currently placed 11th and 12th respectively.

The stand out performance last week though was Jack Stanton-Warren who finished third in the North West regional championships.

The course was the super-hard seven y mile Oakenclough circuit in the Lancashire fells.

Stanton-Warren featured in the early selection of seventh, then had enough strength to go with the eventual winner James Gullen of the professional Pedal Heaven team when he attacked on the four-mile climb that featured five times in the race.

Gullen, who eventually dislodged his breakaway companions, featured prominently in the Tour of Ireland recently, and for Stanton-Warren to figure in his company promises well.

All the riders should be active in June as they look to consolidate their league positions and team ranking with a full programme of midweek races. These will be invaluable as they sharpen up the speed and skills required for the team stage race in Wales, the Ras de Cymru, featuring towards the end of the month and the Tour of Newry.