Pictures by Tim Bardsley - Smith
DH PRACTICE
Seems like Mt Beauty was just a few weeks ago, and it's already time for the National championships, which for 2004 were held in Eildon, Victoria, about 2 hours north of Melbourne.
I've been really looking forward to this race for a while now, the organisers their do a great job, and although Eildon has somewhat of a ghost Town feel to it, I always like being there.
Events started on the Thursday for DH’ers with a bit of practice, starting at lunchtime. This year’s track had a few small changes from last years Oceania championships track, definitely for the better, the track flowed quite nicely and I was enjoying it from my 1st run.
The track kept you thinking the whole way down, it was all about setting up for the next corner and with some different line choices available you could be creative with them; no one likes having to follow ruts.
Not too much went on over the next couple days during practice. Lines were found and remembered and a fair bit of fun was had just getting in some good runs.
4 CROSS
4 cross (4X) was all on Friday arvo. The track was quite fun, but was lacking in a nice big set of doubles (yes, I know that tracks have to be made with all riders in mind).
It had some different line options and had some expert help with ex-UCI course designer Glen Jacobs on hand to make a few adjustments.
Racing started off with a slightly different format to what I’ve seen before. They ran all riders in 4 randomly selected motos, with 4 points for winning your heat, through to 1 point for 4th.
After everyone had raced 4 times the top 16 went through to the elimination rounds. I thought this format was a great idea as it gave all the riders a few races, instead of paying your money to race then getting eliminated in the 1st round, that always sucks real bad.
To spice things up a little there was plenty of BMX talent on show with Luke Maddill, Michael Robinson, and Johnno Johnson, added to the regular mix of World Cup and NORBA racers and podium placers that make up the average Aussie National Championship; Wade Bootes, Mick Hannah, Nathan Rennie, Jared Randopolous just to name a few. There were some quite interesting races for sure.
I went through relatively drama free from my motos to the eliminations. I got a bit fortunate in my quarter, but only after I was a bit unfortunate at the start, but you get that.
The semis were tough though, the first semi consisted of; Robinson, Bootes, Rando and Johnson, which saw Bootes, and Rando advance. In my semi I came up against Rennie, Madill and Hannah. Let's just say that 4 guys all charging into the first corner at the same speed was a bit tight between the trees! I got nudged from every direction and I didn't even know where they were coming from. Hannah and Madill hit the first corner first and that was that.
In the final I’m not 100% sure what happened, but Rando and Madill went down before the first turn, Bootes and Hannah raced on for the win with Mick taking it, and Bootes 2nd while Rando remounted first to claim third.
It was cool to see Mick win the title, he was the fastest on track and he deserved it.
DH QUALIFYING
Sunday brought along the DH finals and a bit of a change of weather, from perfect sun and nice temps, to cloud cover and gusty freezing winds.
With almost 500 riders, racing transport was restricted to one run until everyone had completed one, then some 2nd runs were allowed, some people were heard complaining about people getting more than one run and elite riders being allowed to get to the front of the line for practice.
There are simple logical explanations for this. Nobody had more than two runs, and if you didn’t get 2 runs in, it's your own fault because obviously you stuffed around too much getting ready for practice and didn’t get time for a 2nd.
Elites were allowed to jump the queue because there were so many people at the top of the hill, when the 10am finish of practice came, that if they didn't allow the elite riders that were up there to go, they wouldn't have got in their one compulsory practice run and would have missed the transport back to the top for qualifying at11. Hope that clears it up for anyone who was wondering and/or angry about things.
Anyways, onto racing, and qualifying started a little late due to some confusion at registration, but nobody cared too much. It wasn't freezing at the top anymore, and it was a good chance to chat to people.
Qualifying went well for me and I did my usual qualifying run, going pretty hard but going easy on the pedalling so wasn’t stuffed for the final. I think this was most people’s approach, and with only 13 seconds between 1st and 30th, going easy was a luxury that couldn’t be afforded.
I came down to qualify 2nd, half a second behind Hannah, with Rennie a bees dick behind in 3rd, Rando was on it as well coming in 4th and Ben Cory Running the clips in 5th.
I pick Benny as the guy to keep an eye on this year, he's had some bad luck over the last couple of years, but on a new team with relaxed atmosphere he should be flying. Sam Hill was playing silly buggers, screwing around with our heads by qualifying 6th, but Sambo, you didn’t fool me big fella! I knew your cheeky plan.
The women’s field saw multiple overseas riders showing up to get a taste of our racing scene. Sabrina Hill (nee Jonnier) was out, as was Britain's multiple world cup winner Fionn Griffiths and American 4X bandit Tara Llanes. Representing good old Oz was Tracy Hannah who needs no introduction by now, and Emma McNaughton.
In qualifying it was Sabrina, followed by Fionn with Tracy in 3rd.
DH FINALS
The finals were on 4 hours later, which gave quite a bit of time to think about things, doing some people good, others not so good. The weather had cleared up from the threatening skies that were above earlier to a nice afternoon.
I was trying to hear the speakers at the bottom to see if people were going faster or slower than qualifiers to get an idea of how the track had degenerated. But the wind was still up so all I could hear was what sounded like a guy talking with a mouthful of hamburger, much like the volunteer drivers a lot of the time.
One driver in particular who I ended up with quite a bit during the weekend, couldn't get the food in quick enough, and asking him questions with a mouth full proved to be quite entertaining, but that’s another story.
That feeling you get 10 mins before your race run is an interesting one for sure, I'm sure most of you reading this will know what I mean. It's something we all get, and it can’t be avoided, but its something you have to learn to deal with.
I think I’m learning to deal with it quite well now and I'm starting to feel more and more comfortable with every big race, which I could tell as soon as I left the gate. Not too much nervy brake dabbing and I found my rhythm within 20 seconds.
All was good. My run went nice and smooth, which is what you need on this track. Aggression will just put you through the bunting and rolling down the hill. I almost put it down hard at one point but slammed my foot down and held myself, up all was still good.
As I neared the bottom of the track, it was all really different from how I remembered it from qualifying. The big holes were now verging on huge, and most lines were completely blown apart. I made it through though, sprinting as hard as I could and came across the line in 2nd place, which meant I was 3rd at worst, with Hannah still to come.
To no surprise the rider I was behind was Sam hill who took almost 7 seconds off his qualifier to be 3.5 seconds ahead of me. Sam is just so good on Eildon style off camber its just not funny, he holds lines that you wouldn't think people can.
I was nervously waiting for Mick Hannah to come through to see if I would be 2nd or 3rd. He came into site with a broken chain, very unfortunate for him, he must have been on a sweet run, as he still finished in 5th!! It would have been good to see him have a clean run because with one, I think Sam he would have been very close.
WHEN IT'S ALL SAID AND DONE...
In the End the top 5 stood as Sam, on top and National Champion again followed by myself, with Rennie in 3rd, Rando repeating his qualifying position for 4th, and Hannah in 5th.
Got to mention also Justin Havukainen in 6th who is without a ride for this year, showing everyone just how fast he is. I hope you get something soon mate. In 7th was West Australian charger Ben Shingler, I hadn't heard of him, then I saw him and recognized him from dinner a couple of nights earlier, realised he was from WA then it all made sense, how many more fast WA guys are there?
8th place was Farkin's own Lindsay Klien. He wasnt 100% happy with his run but it was a strong result backing up his first year as a senior, after being junior National Champ last year. 9th went to Oranges' madman himself Mr Ricky Boyer and rounding out the top 10, fellow south east Qlder Matt Tape; Matt's looking super focused right now and is only going to get faster.
The women's ended up going the same as qualifying for the top places, with Jonnier taking the win, Griffiths 2nd, and just 2 seconds further back, Tracy Hannah. Tracy being the 1st Australian makes her the 2004 National DH Women’s Champ! She's going to be one of the best in the world pretty soon.
Juniors saw some new names at the pointy end. Sam Hocken qualifying first but unfortunately with a DNF in the final, Tylah Breese who qualified 2nd finishing in 2nd and Ezra Barthold coming in for a strong 3rd. The junior champ for 2004 is Amiel Cavallier with a solid run, improving on his 2nd place from Mt Beauty. The times between these guys were so close, just over 5 seconds seperating the top 10!
That pretty much does it for another report, just want to say a quick few thanks to people!
Of course my new sponsors Yeti Cycles. The DH9 is just awesome; it worked really nicely on that track and plows like no other. For them to rush me a bike for this race was much appreciated.
Also to Rob Eva at SRAM for his ongoing support, Matt Martin at Oakley for the best optics on the market and Troy Lee Designs for easily the toughest race kit around.
Now go do some runs!!!! Stat!
