NEWCASTLE 4X

By now all of you should be familiar with what’s going on in Newcastle at the Black Hill / Drift 4X track. This time it was another round of the GT winter 4X series, with the usual co sponsors and racers showing up for the weekends events and Sundays Hot Dogging.

Again team GT were out in force, Mark Harvey was up from Melbourne and Tim Bardsley Smith had a corker of a weekend as usual. Before we made it to Newcastle on Saturday afternoon, we stopped by some secret BMX trails on the way North. After watching the locals rip it up, Phil Scicluna was showing us how to ride a BMX too (they are actually his trails, and he was ripping them). Tim was definitely motivated by the riding and just thought it was his day to back flip on dirt. After a bit of eyeing off from the 20 inchers’ he had a couple of dummy runs on the kicker then hucked one around. It wasn’t until his third try that he rode one out clean. Nice.

Secret Trails - 1st: Some BMX'er, 2nd: Phil Sicluna

This set the mood a little and we were pumped to get some late afternoon practice in on the 4X track. As the sun subsided we headed up to the Black Hilton Club house for a nice cold beer, courtesy of the Blue Tongue Brewery, fresh out of the keg, ahhh delicious. And the good times rolled on, well into the night.

Sundays racing and qualifying was great, it was some of the closest racing I had seen from all categories at any 4X race. Having all of the qualifying, and racing programs sorted it pushed along the running of the event very smoothly. The BMX start gate was prepped and ready to drop.

Mark Harvey from Melbourne | Ricky

In the usual 3 round qualifiers we were faced with, one heat was the exact replica of last events final, and who said this was random.... Well all the qualifying rounds were that close and the crowd loved it! I must admit that it was personally the most enjoyable 4X event that I have raced at. I missed out qualifying in the last heat as I crashed out of the lead, from first to last. My previous rounds of 2nd and 3rd didn’t give me enough points to carry me through to the finals.

As usual the lunch time jump show was on again, with every man and his dog gathering around to witness the Dave McLaughlin spectacular, also featuring Mark Harvey Ben “Beer Monster” Goff and Tim Moffat.

Well as I said before Tim Bardsley Smith was on fire this weekend. He won Sporties and was shwagged up for his efforts. The Elite final, well you are going to have to read about that in the next issue of Clict coming out real soon, but it was taken out by a GT rider. As was Junior Men and the womens race too.

GT BMX'er winning the MTX 2

After preso went down, which took a while because there were so many prizes to dish out there was “one more” jump session to go down. Ben Goff showed everyone how to do a 360, Harvey dished out some more Superman seat grabs and No Footed Cans, and Wacka punched his head into the ground trying a 360. A little dazed and confused he got up, sat down for a while, and figured out where he was just enough to be able to drive home.

The next day was on the road again for a Dirt Jump extravaganza. Myself, Mark Harvey, Tim Bardsley Smith and Dave McLaughlin headed deep into the south of Sydney for a day of dirt jumps. Well it was awesome, the footage speaks for itself, I’m sure you will all see it soon.

NSW STATE DH CHAMPIONSHIPS – AMAZONS TRACK

The Hype that had been built around this race track in the weeks prior to the event meant that we were on for a good show. For those of you who haven’t heard, Amazons is our newest track on the NSW State Series. It is easily the most worthy Downhill track on the circuit. It was only discovered a couple of months before we were scheduled to have our Titles and with the exclusion of the Sugarloaf track there was certain disappointment. But for those that raced this event it surpassed all expectations and certainly put a few people off and blew some minds of what a DH track can really be.

So the track is about 3 and a half minutes long, it drops a LOT of vertical and there is not much time wasting going on at all. It is steep, enough to glaze your pads after one or two runs. There are high speed bits that challenge you for No Brakes every run, rock gardens that rattle your brain inside your helmet and leave your eye balls loose in their sockets. Best of all, there are no long flat exhaustive sprint sections, uphill or otherwise. Welcome to the Men’s Club. Look out for a National round here in the not too distant future.

The race organisers were hoping for a stronger turnout, though they feel that the rumours of the track may have put a few people off, but every category was still strongly contested.

 
Amazons DH

This was definitely the race that was going to set the men apart from the boys, who was on form, who was riding fast. In the Junior field Tim Eaton was always going to be hard to beat, even though we were missing some of the National Squad juniors who are currently overseas. Dean Robson put in a good strong ride for second and Tom Cranston just behind that in third.

The track did have a couple of casualties, someone got carted off with sore ribs and Chris Herron broke his Scafoid on Saturday, not good for the lensman who has been working harder than ever and really deserves a Bundy.

The elite category was tightly stacked, Kelly, Smithson, Blue Mountains Chargers Timon Wegner and Travis Aston. Ben Dagan the State Series warrior and the Canberra boys of Adam “Wild Man” Dosseter, Ben “wi wi commecal” Morrison, Nick Stubbsy Stubbs and Nick “Mal Adjusted” Webb. John Farrow and Llewellyn Cameron were dark horses all weekend, with not many people pinning the rock gardens faster than these two, but holding it all together for the final was just not to be.

Travis Aston qualified in first but Smithson was foxing, it was the first race all season were he hadn’t tried to qualify first. Kelly was up there and I had a bit left too going into the final in second place.

The top qualifiers in elite were up the top in the drizzle and anticipating a slippery track, however little moisture was on the track and it was prime for racing. After Smithson’s qualifying crash, where he actually broke a bone in his hand, which later forced him to get a cast, he stormed home and led the field by just over three seconds. I slotted into second place, on the same second as Brad and Travis who were third and fourth, Dosseter took fifth back home to Canberra via Krispy Kreme.

When all was satisfied and packed up, I was told about one spectators’ comment, who is actually an accomplished rider himself. He was standing at the rock gardens watching the Elite Final, “I feel so sorry for the Elite guys having to go so fast through this section, racing is one thing, but this is scary”.
Well it was over before you know it if you just held on and were lucky….

WESTERN SYDNEY 12 HOUR

For those of you that haven’t had your taste of endurance racing yet, which I’m sure there aren’t many of you left out there now. You need to get out and get a team together and give it a smash. At this years Western Sydney 12 hour we formed a team of 5, called the “Rum Riders”. We did have two boxes of Krispy Kremes, and a case of Bundies, and two big fat Cuban Cigars, what more would you expect from downhillers. Most of that didn’t get consumed until the end except for the donuts. But we did have heaps of fun, me on flat pedals, and having my lights go flat half way through the night lap could have maybe made for better times. But Phils lights went flat too and Nauthe hit the wall on his last lap. Bardso was going to kill us all if he had to go out on another lap, and Ash just wanted to do more laps.
In the end we ended up 6th out of 25 five man teams, and in the top 30 somewhere overall, hows that, I thought it was pretty funny!

NSW STATE SERIES DH FINAL ROUND – Big Bit Hill, Batemans Bay

Our last winter DH was run in conjunction with Canberra and their State titles. The turn out was not spectacular as anticipated as the track we were racing on was down on the coast near Batemans Bay.

The transport was organised runs for both days, buses and trailers. Standard issue. The track had two awesome sections, the top and the bottom, linked in the middle by a LONG flat pedal. The track was great fun to ride but a real lung buster come race day.

There was definitely a strong Canberra Sydney mix which is always a good thing to keep up acquaintances. After 4 out of 6 races this year being wet, and one being cancelled due to snow, we were all looking forward to a nice dry race. It was not to be, with lots of rain on Saturday night and sprinkles on Sunday the track was kept damp and slippery. Especially after the first couple of Elite qualifiers took off for their final run the heavens opened up again and we were riding in the mud once more!

In Juniours it was Tim Eaton again from Robson, and Cranston, a repeat of the State Titles results.

The top elite qualifiers were Smithson, McNaughton, Webb, Morrison, Walsch, then myself in 6th with a Flu Virus. There was a lot of controversy as some riders did not even get a qualifying time and we were all sent up the hill again for the Finals.

Adam smithson winning NSW State Champs Amazons DH

The order we went off in wasn’t going to matter too much until the heavens opened. But pinners be pinners we all punched it. With most riders having clean runs, no pun intended, we kept the rubber side down and pumped the pistons across the flat straight. Webb came across the line in 5th, McNaughton 4th, Dosseter 3rd, Smithson 2nd, and I found myself in First.

Even Strommy was home from overseas on a borrowed bike and cruised his way to 6th. Well it didn’t give me enough points to take the series, Smithson won it convincingly, he cut his cast off himself on Saturday morning. Respect. So that put me in second for the series and McNaughton in third.


Stoked on a nice big picture in Freewheel this month with the last Newcastle 4X article, it’s a bumper issue with heaps to read. The highlight is definitely the Rowney piece a must read, hes a true Champion!

Dave McLaughlin at Tahmoor Southern Sydney

Chris Herron Updates, he has been out and about too, though a little slower now with his busted hand, but we did have a smashing day at the new AMB trails featured in the last issue, it took a while to get the jumps dialled but some of the pics are great, check em out in the news section on the site.

There is still one more 4X in the winter GT series, it is set to be a smasher! Come and race, if not come and have a look. You wont be disappointed. 2&3 October.

Vegas calls, interbike is on again as usual and ill be letting you all know what is new in the world of MTB very shortly, otherwise meet me in Melbourne at the trade show and ill show you what is new with Orange and Royal for 2005!

Cairns has the first round of the National series this year, make sure you save your pennies, it will surely be one not to miss. Glen Jacobs designed DH and 4X, need I say more. All reports say that there is tonnes of work going on to the tracks and pit area. These guys know how to run a race – where else in Australia has held the World Mountainbike Championships before?

And apparently there is about to be a [R]evolution about to hit the newsstands some time soon, refreshing they say, bring it on I say.

Thanks especially to Orange Royal Smith Sram No-Tubes Mum&Dadracing,

Peace out,

Rick Boyer