Mat Dodd and I drove down to Awaba (near Newcastle NSW) for the final round (4) of the National Gravity Cup which was held last weekend. We arrived in Newcastle on Thursday afternoon and soon after the rain started which was to be the trend for the next few days!
We managed a track walk (slide)on Friday morning amid heavy rain and lots of mud. We decided to hit the track after lunch but only managed to get a couple of runs in because the shuttle uplift was having trouble getting up the track. It was going to be very difficult because we had never ridden Awaba previously and the track is a killer - steep and technical with multiple rock gardens that demand respect. Needless to say, I managed to crash but without major damage however; we decided to call it quits until Saturday & hope that the weather cleared!
Saturday arrived and it was still raining heavily but we had the advantage of not practising until after lunch so our hope was that it would clear by then! No such luck, it continued to rain during practice and the mud was chewing out brake pads faster than a keg of beer disappears at a Wharfies picnic!! I managed to get in one (1) practice run before our Seeding race late in the afternoon. I decided to go as hard as possible in Seeding in case the race was called off on Sunday due to continuing rain. I managed to qualify in 12th place but it was a slow run compared to others in front of me including Troy Brosnan, Sam Hill, Mitch Delfs and Rhys Willemse.
Race day rolled around on Sunday and the heavens cleared with the sun shining which all added up to high humidity but that was better than the rain on previous days! The mud stayed but at least we could see some race lines however; I still only managed to get one (1) practice run in before the race due to the slow uplift of shuttles. I rolled over the start line and pinned it as fast as possible which meant riding on the edge and this brought me undone a couple of times when I almost crashed! The track was notably faster but by the time I got to the last 100m muddy pedal section I was stuffed to say the least but Doddy was trackside yelling at me to 'pedal harder' - nothing left!! I finished in 9th place and improved my race time from seeding by 30 seconds which I considered to be a good result given that I only managed to ride the track 6 times including race runs! Mat came in at 16th which was a great effort after crashing heavily on Saturday and injuring his knee!
Anyway, that's it for this National Season! I will have a couple of weeks off before getting back into training and deciding where to ride/race overseas later in the year - Europe, USA or Canada. Once again, a big thanks to my supporting sponsors: Santa Cruz Bikes, ForTheRiders.com, NSDynamics.com.au, Chunked.com.au, Mavic, Straitline Components, Elka Suspension, Diverse Springs, Maxxis and FreeLap Timing - awesome products and service so get some! Finally, a big thanks to Paul Dymalla for his continued help in building my awesome wheels - I certainly test them and they stand the test of time!!
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