Words - Jared Graves
Pics - Shawn Spomer
How’s it going pork chops? Just doing a bit of a report thing for the NORBA at Big Bear on the weekend, hope you enjoy it.
This year the NORBAs have a slightly different schedule, with events starting on Thursday with Mountain Cross practice. The course for this was quite fast and wide with a few opportunities for passing for a change, which was very welcome.
The first real day of competition started on Friday with Mountain Cross qualifying. The course was long and fast but had only one good jump, however it was awesome for racing and lots of fun was had.
All the team made it into the finals comfortably, with Nathan Rennie qualifying in 7th, Sam Hill in 20th and despite not being able to pedal half the course, Bryn Atkinson was 42nd, with myself in 11th.
Racing was held on Saturday night which wasn’t the best idea in my opinion, as the biggest double on the course was hard to judge because of the sun coming directly into your eyes.
Anyways, unfortunately Bryn was eliminated first round, then Rennie went in the next round after a bit of an over excited move from another guy in his race which took him out. In true Rennie fashion though, he did a nice 360 on one of the jumps for the crowd, which they enjoyed.
Sam and I moved through our first two rounds to advance to the quarter finals, where I became a victim of a bad start to desperate first corner move which took two others with me. Eric Carter avoided it all in front, while John Kircaldie clipped me but stayed on to take the second spot in the race to advance.
David K and I got well and truly tangled up though and feeling a bit annoyed with myself I took out some anger on a berm near the bottom of the course and decided to give the crowd there a bit of a dirt shower. This resulted in a not so happy camera man, you stand on top of a berm mate; you’re going to get dirty.
Sam was also was eliminated this round, but he'd had a lot of fun and was happy to make it that far and we both ended up in the top 10, a solid start to the season for sure.
In the Final was Brian Lopes, Eric carter, Chris Powell and Neil Wood. Eric Carter got the gate and went on for the well deserved win, with some coming together for the others, but Lopes came back for 2nd followed by Powell and Wood, an awesome result for his first NORBA race.
However all of Madcatz were more concerned with Sunday’s downhill, which is much more our type of thing. Practice started on Friday morning, and after the first practice run I was having a superb time on the track, fast and flowing the whole way down, the type of track you could do runs on all day.
The only bad side of the course was jumps the whole way down, which could have been good, but they were made badly; with small takeoffs at high speed and no transition, almost every jump bucked the riders and needless to say, the ambulance became a regular site at the race site. I wont mention what everyone already knows happened at the race, it was very disturbing to me, but I would prefer to stick to the positives.
By race day the course was becoming quite chopped up and dry. Qualifying went well for the Aussies, Mick Hannah fastest, Steve Peat 2nd, myself 3rd , Kovarik 4th, Fabien Barel in 5th and Sam Hill in 6th.
In the few hours break between qualifying and the final, sections of the track were destroyed completely, which made conditions in the final difficult.
In my run I came out of the start feeling good until the second turn which was basically non existent anymore, just a big pile of sand that, by the looks of it, everyone was having some trouble with. Not the most enjoyable part of the course, but a at least I held it together and didn’t lose too much time. The rest of my run went smoothly, but I came in in 4th place at the line with 2 riders left to come.
To a lot of peoples surprise Carter had taken a huge chunk off his qualifying time to be in the hot seat. It was an exciting finish, with Peat coming down after me and just failing to go faster than Carter, then Hannah came down and also just failed to go faster too, which gave Carter his first ever NORBA downhill win, and also giving him the Mountain Cross/DH double. Good stuff indeed.
Peat was second, Kovarik 3rd, Sam Hill charged down the Hill to show people why he's Junior World Champ for 4th, and Hannah came in 5th. I took 6th, I was happy for sure, but I wanted to get on the podium so bad. Still, it was a good start to the season, definitely much better than my 68th place here last year, having to play catch up in the points all year sucks.
Nathan Rennie was 7th Giving Madcatz / Iron Horse 3 of the top 7 spots with John Waddel in 8th giving the Aussies 3rd place through to 8th. Dustin Adams and Fabien Barel rounded out the top 10. Bryn wasn’t too happy with his run, after destroying the course all week and qualifying a strong 11th, he had a disappointing final to finish 19th, but no doubt will be cracking top 10 any time.
Good stuff as well in the women’s with Tioga/Oranges Aussie girl Tai-Lee Muxlow taking second spot in the women’s event. Tai is on the gas and is going to win one for sure this year, but will no doubt face tough competition from this event’s winner Tracy Moseley.
Anyways, that’s about it from me, lots of fun was had by us all, really strong start to the year by the team I thought which should show people out there that Iron Horse bikes are for sure the goods. Next time I hear someone bagging them without riding one, I wont be happy. If this doesn’t show people out there that they're as good as anything, I don’t know what will.
Off to Europe for the first couple of World Cups in a couple weekends, so I'll have some more stuff to say after them sometime. If you’re lucky.
Discuss this here.
