OCM Racing News
  
  Maldon, Essex: It may be the birthplace of this journalist, but Maldon, Essex is also the place where this season’s Essex Tour was decided. Over the last couple of seasons, many OCM Tours have seen first time winner – Brasil, Enrico, Sahir, Abston, Nae, Wyeth to name but a few. This season’s Essex Tour continued this trend as Christoph Frisch (Team iPower) took his first major victory – indeed, his first success in the top division. 4th, 11th and 27th in the Tour’s three stages may not seem worthy of overall victory but consistency in the key stages (Stages 1 and 2) is what is required. Team iPower have built a team, which also includes Yasunari Yamauchi and Dan Korosec, which is capable of challenging for success in any of the Tours and are likely to show this over the coming seasons.
  
  Frisch took the Gold Jersey by the narrowest of margins, some tenths of a second, from Klaus Naessens (FFL) whose 2nd place in the Stage 2 time trial wasn’t quite enough. Urbano Menem (Team Whalers) continued his impressive debut season by finishing 3rd, with Perm Tour victor, Corwin Wyeth, in 4th. Despite winning two of the three stages with Fenton Sommers and a resurgent Ian Defley, Dodge will feel somewhat aggrieved by finishing outside of the top 9 of the GC. However, two stage victories, in itself, will surely be medicine enough.
  
  Focus now moves to Day 63 and the sign up for the season’s biggest race, the Germany Tour. Will Germany see another maiden winner, or will Amadeu Brasil (Bajen Belfast) prevail again?
  
  Equipo

Easy On finally on top
  
  After two seasons on top of the rankings, skils have finally been displaced. Equipo Easy On have been threatening to overtake the Dutch team for a number of weeks and it finally happened last week. The team’s relocation to Germany seems to have given EEO that added edge and a so far highly successful season, including in Perm and Essex, now sees them go top. How would skils react to this? Well, quickly was the answer. They have strengthened their team with the promising climber, Mas''ud Qutaiba, who was signed from Torreira yesterday. The Bahrain rider will share captaincy with the young Dutch climber, Jeremy Hollander, in what is hoped will generate enough points in the climbing races to retake top spot. Meine Berkhout, a top sprinter in his own right, moved the other way (to Torreira) as part of the deal. Frustrated at his lack of captaincy opportunities, the Dutchman will be looking to relaunch his career at the Portuguese team, whose increased focus on the flat races will suit him well.
  
  Another team on the up is Team airik who are having a fine season. The resurgence of Ralph van Bon was inevitable at some point and the Dutch sprinter seems to finally be recapturing his form of two seasons ago. In addition, Julius Delavignette and Domenico De Assis have also been accumulating the points and the two riders performed their magic last week by winning two races for the team in successive days. This has pushed the Norwegian team up to 6th in the rankings. With two other quickly improving teams above and below them, Team Whalers and Bajen Belfast, it

surely won’t be long before one of them is challenging the ‘Big 4’.
  
   Saudi Arabian’s love affair with Belgium continues
  
  Fakhiri Abdel (Legia) took his second Division 1 Classic in Huy last week meaning that, of the Saudi Arabian rider’s six results this season, five have come in Belgium. Gabriel Hammer (Simoni crew) was 2nd with Julius Delavignette (team airik) in 3rd.
  
  Division 2 saw two Classics last week. First, Hanneken Engelborgh (Monkeys United), outsprinted Salim Wajeeh (Equipe 44) and Serafin Ballestero (Glamourade) in the Lappi Sea GP which, following his success in the Division 3 Rotterdam Classic, gave the Belgium rider his second Classic title of the season. Next up was Grasse – Toulon, a hilly sprint in France. Danish veteran Max Kruse (Tannlaus) was the first to the line beating out Alain Dobbelaere (Darkwave Recordings) and Delrick Massart (Bilal).
  
  And finally….
  
  …with Telek@m, MCT and Poker21 proudly displaying their ‘rainbow flags’, the diversity of OCM is fast increasing. Riders from North and South Korea, Latvia and San Marino have been signed by teams in recent weeks showing that the spread of OCM is increasing. Rumours have even started that riders will be representing their national teams from Cornwall and the Dutch Antilles, which begs the questions whether this journalist will one day be managing a team in the Essex rankings.