Wagga young gun Myles Stewart wins the 2021 Butch Menz Memorial

Stewart was part of a three-member scratch group that reeled in the field and the young gun then proved too good in a sprint finish to capture the prestigious race on Sunday.

The 21-year-old was thrilled to win the race for the first time.

"I was very happy. I've done it a fair few times as a young guy so it was good to get a win," Stewart said.

"With the series, at Griffith, we were about 30 seconds off catching. It was 25 minutes (on Sunday) from front to back and we really had to dig deep.

"We only caught them with about 2 kilometres to go so we were pretty lucky."

The scratch group of three joined the seven block riders and worked about catching the rest of the field.

"We caught them in about 10km and worked pretty well with them," he said.

"We caught the rest with two (kilometres to go) and I had a bit of a rest for about five minutes and then went for the sprint and got the win, which was good.

"It's good, especially a Wagga race, it's a good one to get the win."

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Stewart won in one hour 37 minutes, which was also the fastest time.

It was a bunch finish for second to 10^th. Fellow scratch rider Sean Smith grabbed second ahead of Wagga Cycling Club's Calvin Combs.

Mia Stockwell enjoyed a big race. She picked up the first 'king of the mountain' and was the first lady to finish.

For Stewart, the focus now is to continue training in the hope he will be able to head to Brisbane next month for the next National Road Series (NRS) event.

"I was supposed to be going to Brisbane in two weeks for NRS but I'm not sure if I'll be able to make that with COVID at the moment," he said.

"We'll just have to wait and see. That was my next big race.

"I've been training hard for the last few months and it's a bit annoying, training hard and then this. You've just got to play it by ear.

"I've got the NRS, then I've got a pretty packed schedule for the back end of the year but I've just got to play it by ear with COVID."

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