NI Cup Round 1 - Rotorua 5-6/02/10

Friday was practice day. Cruised down for my first run, and glad i did. Was expecting the lines to be like usual but they werent. Usualy they pick one of the lines and leave all the lines on that line open, but this time they didnt. They ran team line up the top, and picked the lef tmost line in that, then crossed over to the right to a off cambre bit, then back to the left and around the corner, then as normal to the road. Since they picked the left most line, it made going of the drop in team line a bit hard, I just had to make sure i didnt go to fast or to slow. After the road it went into the stepdown line, which was as normal, but they had built some woops before it, which took me a while to get right and comfortable enough to do the stepdown, but was algood, once i worked out where to hit it from and what gear i had to be in. After that it went into the couch chute, but not off the drop, instead it went on the bus stop to the right around the normal line. Next was Pimpstump, but not like normal, instead of straight down Pimpstump, it went down the start of the easier line then into the harder line. After that it was the last chute, different again, down the harder line at the top, then into the left line through a new line. Then into the left end jump, that part was like the only part that wasnt different. At first i was having trouble with the track, not remembering how the track went and what bits where taped off. Once i started to remember where everything was, i started pushing my self a bit more. Got a bit close to some trees down Couch chute which was scary. About half was through the day, I hit the step down, woulda hit it sooner if i hadnt kept mucking the woops before. Was algood once i worked out where to hit it from and what i had to be in to pedal into the Step down.

Saturday was race day. I got two practice runs during the mourning, and they seemed to go together a lot better then Fridays runs, so was feeling pretty good coming into seeding run. On my last practice run i had noticed that my spokes had come lose so got Cam (the dude that owns bicycle) to do them back up for me, only to find i had a decent flat spot where the spokes were lose so they couldnt be tightened. Got to the top to wait for my seeding run, while i was waiting i got bored so dusted of my rim and looked at the flat spot and noticed that there was something that looked like a crack, which it was. Did my seeding run on it hopeing that it wouldnt get any worse and that my tyre wouldnt go down as i was running tubeless. got a time of 4.06.something, only making a couple of small mistakes. Was pretty happy with my time, got fastest seeding for my group. Went over and showed Cam the crack in the rim, and said i would have to find a rear wheel that i could borrow of someone. I ended up borrowing Baylee Jacksons rear wheel as she wasnt racing, because she had work on the friday. Cam sorted all that out for me, changing the tires over and cassette and finding a brake adapter. Went up for my race run, and decided that i wanted to see if i could break the 4min mark. I was last one down the hill in my group. My run went together pretty much perfectly for me. Just in the last chute i crashed and ended up down the bank, i dont even know what happened, i wasnt out of control like i had been at the previous races i had crashed on, which annoys me.Later found out that a log on the side of the had gotten uncovered about where i crashed, so i think i must have clipped that which caused me to crash. Got down with a time of 4.24something, and Charlotte that got the winning time got a 4.17something, which annoyed me because my seeding time bet her race time by a little over 10secs. I ended up 3rd

Full results here: http://www.vorb.org.nz/download/file.php?id=126927

Video from Stumpy:

http://www.vimeo.com/9287676