RACING returns to the Milburys crossroads at Beauworth, on the Hampshire Downs near Bishop's Waltham this Sunday, one week after British cycling's regional road championships were decided there.

Like that annual event, this one incorporates several races within a race, and although the course to be used is different, its distance - eight miles - is similar in length but not quite so hilly in nature.

Chosen by Rufus Wheelers when they staged their first road race for veterans six years ago, it has proved popular with competitors who have contested it ever since.

Among the entrants listed, for what has now become a joint promotion with Team Velo Vet, is a former Winchester rider, who helped form the city's Venta RC - a club which subsequently amalgamated with the Kingsgate CC to form what has now become VC Venta.

Roger Coombes was one of that club's founder members nearly 50 years ago, but gave up cycling a few years later and only returned to the sport on medical advice to strengthen his knee joints three years ago.

Now resident in California, 64 year-old Coombes was expected to fly in from the United States yesterday (June 5) to spend the next few weeks renewing contacts with friends and relatives, and will compete in the five-lap race for the over-60s. Younger veterans in the 40-50-year-old age bands will ride an extra lap to complete 50 miles.

Three days after a 25-mile time trial was called off after most of the 68 entrants had started when one of them was knocked down by a passing motorist, racing returned without incident when Andover Wheelers organised a ten-mile club event on the same stretch of road, and Sotonia CC are hoping its race for 'middle-markers' tomorrow afternoon will also be free of such incidents.

None of the 120 riders listed has beaten 22 minutes for the distance but over 20 of them have come within a minute of that time in the last three seasons and on this course, on the A303 west of Andover, several can be expected to improve their personal records if conditions are good.