AKDH Round 5 - Auckland 12-13/12/09

Flew up early friday mourning, as in really early. 7am flight which kinda sucked. Got a rental car from the airport and drove to Sheep World, which is where we were staying for the weekend. We pretty much dumped our bags in the room, put the bike back together and put it in the car along with all my riding gear and headed to the track to go have a look at it. We ended up following BenTyas and some of his mates in, so we drove to the top and did some shuttles with them. First impression of the track was that it was scary and steep and hard to remember. proberly did about 7-8 shuttles, and i still had no idea how the track went, couldnt even remember the first couple of corners. There was one jump me and Sophie Tyas were looking at doing but were to scared to do because we had to jump over branches, so we moved the branches, hit the jump a couple of times then put them back.

Saturday was practice day, did runs down the track, and started to be able to remember bits of the track. Was looking at doing one of the jumps, so talked to Lawrence Cawte about it and followed him into it, didnt hit it that time tho, hit it the next time down. Was pretty scary, was in the air a bit longer then i thought i would be. Started getting the hang of it, was a pretty easy jump, just do the real easy one before and coast off the next one. Decided that since i was getting the hang of the track i would start looking at doing the last jump, which is a slight hip to the left, and if you came up short it wasnt going to be very nice. While i was looking at it and waiting for people to come down and hit it so i could watch them a dude called Dan came and joined me looking at it. We ended up talking and we made a deal, that next run down we were both going to hit it. I asked Bryn Dickerson if i could follow him into it, so he waited for me in the section before hand, i followed him in and hit it. Proberly not my smartest idea considering i came up quite a bit short. Not entirely sure what i did wrong, one person that saw me attempt it said that once i left the lip of the jump my front started dropping, while another said that i looked like i was having second thoughts and braked coming into it. all i know is that it hurt. Dan didnt end up hitting it, not sure why, think it was cos it started raining and the track is unrideable in the rain.

Race day was silly at the beginning as the track is pretty much unrideable when wet and since it had rained quite a bit, there was no way i could ride down it. I carried on doing runs tho, as it would dry quicker from people riding and sliding down it. I skipped the first part of the track for the first run tho, as all the good and fast guys that were trying it were losing it and crashing apart from the odd exception. practice ended up being extended by an hour or two because no one could ride the track fully. I was having second thoughts about racing, as i was pretty sore from my crash yesterday. ended up racing tho. Pretty much just cruised down the track as i didnt want to crash as i feeling a bit dizzy. Ended up coming 3rd behind Charlotte and french Sophie, which surprised me as i thought i would be 5th (last out of the girls that raced, two pulled out, and maddy got a DNF as she twisted her ankle on her last practice run, so she just crossed the start line so she could get a placing for the series.). I ended up 1st for the series which i was hoping for.

Race results here: http://rotorua.mtbclub.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/AKDH%20%20Dome%20Valley%20Final.pdf

Series results here: http://www.akdh.co.nz/forms/AKDHNIS2009FinalResultsOverall.pdf