SI Cup Round 2 - Nelson - Fringe Hill - 11-12/02/11

This race was a Friday and Saturday race. I wasnt going to do this race till about a week before when Carl decided that he was keen to go down for it. He decided to go down as he was down for the week at mine because he was coming down for Nitro Circus on the Wednesday. We managed to organise the trip in two days and book everything as well as getting Lloyd and Mark to come along as well. We left Thursday morning, all meeting at the Ferry terminal to load up Carls car and swap bike racks so we can take all four bikes. The ferry over was pretty boring, we watched a movie for a bit, walked around and gernerally did nothing for the ride over. Once at Picton we drove to Nelson and tried to find the place we were staying at. (We had forgotten to write down the address or take a map with us, we only knew roughly where it was in relation to last weekends track. Probly took us about 30mins to find it.)

Friday was practice day. It was a hot, sunny and dry day like pretty much every other day for the previous races (expect rotorua of course). First run down the track, and i knew i liked this track, and suited me much better than last weekends one, and i figured i should be able to stand a decent chance at winning. I did enough runs to feel comfortable enough with the track. I could never

remember the track off by heart tho, but roughly knew what coming ahead of me as i rode the track. This track was a different sort of techniqual to last weekends. this track was more tight and rooty while still be fast. this has also got to be one of the only tracks where there werent actually any jumps on it really. there were a few kinda float over the top ones but that was cos how the hill went, not because the builders felt like chucking a jump in. I prefer these sort of tracks to the tracks with jumps on them just for the hell of it.

Saturday was race day. I did two runs down with Carl to steal his lines in one or two places, then it was time for seeding. Seeding went good enough. made a few small mistakes here and there like always, i was happy with my run though. Didnt pedal down the bottom as i was planning on saving my energy for race run. Race run came and went horribly. Right from the get go i stuffed up. got off line in the first corner causing me too lose heaps of speed. Crashed not long after that from being frustrated, then crashed again because i was too busy trying to work out where i could make up extra time instead of paying attention. After the second crash i fully concentrated on the track ahead of me and it all went good apart from losing the rear in a corner after a step

up jump and ended up crashing for 3rd time. After the third crash though, i stop caring and just let go of the brakes, scaring myself for pretty much the rest of the run. Got to the bottom of

track where the pedaly bit is feeling pretty knackered and frustrated. Pedal as hard as i could all the way down the last bit. That had to be the hardest and most pedaling ive done in ages if not

forever. I ended up with a 2nd place 3 seconds behind sophie and 4 seconds off my seeding time. I was pretty angry at that result, as if i had only had 2 crashes i would've won. Stupid crashes

Sunday was the day that we drove back to Picton to catch the ferry back to Wellington. we were on a 10.05 ferry in the moring which ment that we had to get about at about 5.30-6 in order to

have breakfast and stuff and repack the car and load all the bikes on and drive to Picton to be in time for our ferry. We all managed to be up on time to do what we had to do and pack the car. that is everyone but Mark, who we had to wake up in the end. We left pretty much on time maybe a couple mins late, not that it mattered as we gave ourselves more than enough time to get to the ferry. Played a racing car game in the ferry arcade for what ended up being roughly have the trip im guessing, then spent the rest of the time resting or walking around or whatever else you do on a ferry.