2005 NSW State Round 3 - Mt. Stromlo, ACT
Competition Report:
2005 NSW State Round 3, 8th May 2005
CORC – Mt. Stromlo, ACT
Ever ridden your bike on the surface of the moon? Nah, neither have I. But the third round of the 2005 NSW State DH series seemed to bear a resemblance to the surface of our nearest planetary neighbour. Before leaving cold and wet Sydney Town I had armed myself with a couple of maps and directions to the race site from the trusty Farkin Forums and followed these to the letter, only to find that once you get to within a couple of kilometres of Mt. Stromlo, you can see everything anyway. The savage bushfires that swept through parts of Canberra a few years ago, and the subsequent Forestry ‘maintenance’ has left the eastern side of Mt. Stromlo bear and barren. From the car park at the bottom of the course you can see the start of the track, the last 600 metres to the finish and most of the road to the top as well. It was a somewhat bizarre environment. The lack of trees led to some riders giving a sigh of relief at the realization that there were less objects to crash into, but this was soon over ridden by the copious amounts of rocks and lung choking dust that lay a foot deep in some of the corners of the track, and the car park!
The local CORC club had done a good job in re-building the track in a relatively short amount of time after the Forestry service recently ripped up most of the hillside in a planting program. From the start you rolled down a short embankment and through a deceptive S-turn, jump/over some logs before the incline steepened and the rocks started protruding through the ground towards your rims. A couple of rocky corners later and you had a sweeping right hander made tricky by the dust, into a short left that immediately led to a right that was rocky enough to jar your teeth. Another left with a large rock pile on the exit, a small log drop/jump thing into an off camber rutted right hander with a crumbling berm. A quick left-right out of there into a well bermed left and across the off-camber hillside, dodging the larger rocks, using the berms and trying not to get sucked down into the soft piles of dust on the side of the track. A G-out onto the road which led to possibly the fastest section of the track, a quick peddle along some flat ground, jump over a mound then an easy right as the hill steepened and into another loose rock garden. This became easier as the weekend progressed and a line was worn through it. Try and stay off the brakes, through a bermed right hander, over a small double and pick up speed over a couple of small jumps onto the biggest drop on the track, but the quick line was through the small gap on the left, less air time equals more time for peddling. Over and around a few small mounds, across another road, and slightly left over some rocks to set yourself up for the pallet drop. This was within site of the finish and was the main spectator point on the track. The pallet was fairly slow speed and wasn’t that tricky itself, but the run-in was and landing immediately in a corner compounded that. The corner was a rocky right hander, which was followed by an even rockier left hander, more rocks, a rollable rock drop, then the obvious line was over a small gap jump and into a right hander. But by the end of Saturday the chicken line on the left of the gap was giving a better line into the corner. Then it was a couple of sweeping corners, G-out onto the road, set up early for the bermed right hander, a couple more bermed corners, onto another road, a 50 metre flat sprint, then a couple of small doubles down an embankment to the finish. All-in-all a fun track to ride, but tricky to master. Not too long, but plenty to remember.
Practice on Saturday didn’t reveal too many problems. The mini-buses and trailers provided constant lifts to the top, the clouds moved on, the sun shone and the dust settled on cars in the car park. The only drama started to appear as some riders started to make a few “creative” lines in a few spots. The hosting club had not taped very much of the track, trusting riders to follow the ‘generally follow the main line down the hill’ rule. However, it seemed not everyone was to be trusted. And once one person starts using a line, well, no one wants to be left out. “But there’s no tape there!” was the cry. “Use your [un]common sense” should be the answer. But, to be honest, I think it’s a two-sided coin. The club should’ve used a bit more tape in sections, but riders shouldn’t take the law into their own hands. Lets move on to the racing.
Sunday saw a few more people turn up and add to the 181 total riders. This included Jared Rando, still in the country recovering from his broken wrist. He had snuck some early runs in on Saturday aboard his proto Giant DH bike (bigger version of the new Faith’s, very reminiscent of the Iron Horse DW Link, but ‘better’ according to Jared) and was raring to go. A few practice runs to get everything sorted without tiring yourself out and it was time to head to the top. Castech were there to do the timing, and their man at the top confidently counted down each rider in turn, leaving us to get on with the riding. Elite Men, Elite women and U19 Men all set off for their first runs. Jared Rando (Giant) ended up getting down the hill quickest, setting a bench mark time of 2:12.61. He was closely followed by fellow Canberran Ben Cory (Commencal) in a 2:13.12. Ben Dagan, Amiel Cavalier (Giant), riding in Elite again, and Nick Webb rounded out the top 5. In the U19 Luke Gowan (Severe) was 4 seconds ahead of Hugh Mansfield (SIC), very closely followed by local Tim Eaton (The Bike Shed). Claire Whiteman (Kona) held off Joanna Fox in the Elite Women.
Expert Men soon followed down, all fired up after watching the Elite and U19 hot shots off the start line. With a field made up of a few regulars, a few new faces and some locals, it was wide open. Everyone went out hard in their run, not knowing what was to come. Lee Meldrum finished in first place with yours truly not far behind and Ben Goff breathing down my neck in third. Mention must be made of the hard-cases doing the race on Hard Tails in Expert class. Not content to be first in their own class they have to come and embarrass a few of us in Expert. Didn’t catch ya names fellas, but good on ya.
The rest of the classes followed with Samantha Thompson taking out Masters Women, and Susan Forester beating all comers in the Sport Women.
The U17 Men was hotly contested with Tom Brodie coming out on top, but he was beaten by the U15 winner, Shaun ‘But there’s no tape on those corners!’ O’Conner who was well ahead of second place.
Time for the plethora of Masters categories and Scott Tiller, Mark Keegan, Troy Rowell and Steve Coles were top of the respective categories.
Sport Class was soon descending the hill, fighting for the Sand Bagger of the Day award. It was taken in true sand bagger style by David Marshall, 10 seconds ahead of Timothy Hoover in second and Brad Goff in third.
The Hardtailers were now pitting themselves against the rocks in their own style and Tim Dickens had the class to himself in Juniors, but would’ve placed 4th in the Seniors behind Brad Williams, Sean Cheney, and Ryan Murphy who set a cracking time of 3:06.
Of course, as these guys were heading down, the Elite Men and Women and U19 Men who had qualified were being called back up. And here came the first surprise of the day: along with calling the Elite Women, top 20 Elite men and top 15 U19 men, the top 5 Expert men were called. Having not been told previously that this was happening, there were a few confused faces around. Especially from those who had packed the bikes away and headed back up the hill to watch the others. Luckily the PA system carried up there and those who heard their names were able to literally run back down the hill, retrieve their bikes and gear and make it to the trailers in time to head back up. When asked when this had been decided, the officials shrugged and said, “It just was.” Now, it is very kind of CORC to let the top 5 Experts have a second run, but a bit more warning would have been nice, like on the entry form or before sending us down the hill the first time??
After the panic, the U19’s ended up heading off first on their second runs. With Amiel racing up in Elites it was left to Hugh Mansfield to come out on top, with a time of 2:16.06, ahead of Luke Gowen’s fastest qualifying time. Unfortunately, Luke slipped back into third behind Dean Robson, and Time Eaton went MIA to end up back in 15th.
Elite Women were up next and Claire Whiteman continued her form to stay ahead of Joanne Fox.
Then to the second run for the Experts and they decided to swap things around a little, with Lee Meldrum staying in first in 2:29.67, Andrew Byrnes jumping into second, and I held on for third. Ben Goff finished fourth, and I guess Luke Mountt missed hearing his name and didn’t show for the second run and dropped into fifth.
On to the Elite Men and as the sun set behind the hill, the eyes of those at the bottom squinted and looked to follow the dust trails down the hill. A welcome change in commentator and the live timing at the bottom added to the excitement as riders raced to beat their earlier time and stay ahead of the competition. Rick Boyer (Orange), Adam Dossiter (Commencal) and Brad Kelly (Specialized) all went significantly faster than their first runs and set some fast times for the remaining riders to beat. Local favourite Aaron Bashford failed to appear and DNF’d and Andy Epthorp had the bad luck to suffer a mechanical within sight of the finish. But there was no bad luck stories for the top qualifiers. Amiel Cavalier soon came into view on a flying run that stopped the clock at 2:12.79, just short of Rando’s qualifier, but possibly fast enough to win. Ben Dagan must have had some trouble and dropped well back on a 2:23, leaving two riders to come. Ben Cory is staying in Australia this year to complete his HSC, but obviously he’s not letting that slow him down. He came into view on a very fast time and he didn’t let up. He sprinted the last 50 metres to the line and stopped the clock at 2:09.5, the first to go under 2:10. Would it be enough to hold off his mate Jared? We would soon see. Rando crested the ridge also on a flying time. It was going to be close. He stayed smooth as always over the rocks and made no mistakes in the last few corners. He sprinted for the line and stopped the clock. 2:09.7. Cory had held on! It was a welcome return to the top step for the 2001 Junior World Champion, but Rando is definitely back and ready to head overseas very soon.
So the racing was over and everyone packed up. The presentation was held and a handshake is almost a good prize for third in Expert men. The top three in Sport also seemed mystified that the U15’s got a nice white envelope while they received a pat on the back for riding as fast as they could down a rock infested hill. Oh, well, lucky we do it for the fun. At the end of the day, I think everyone enjoyed doing what they were there for: riding their bikes down a hill. But I think that CORC can aim for a new Personal Best next time and fix a few little niggles.
Some photos of the event can be seen here: http://photos.dontyell.net/Sports/MountainBike_2004/Dargle-DH_20040403/20040403/index.html
and here: http://www.photosbychris.com.au/
For full results, follow this link: http://forums.farkin.net/showthread.php?t=30641
The next NSW State DH round is in Nowra on June 11th and 12th, hosted by the Wollongong club. I don’t have any other details, but it’s supposed to be a great new track. Keep an eye out and get ready to go racing!
Update: Details for the next round can be found here. Discussions about the event here.
