Oceania’s is the final race of the New Zealand national mountain scene. I drove up to Rotorua on Wednesday after work so that on Thursday I could check out the Super D track on Thursday morning to decide if I wanted to race it or just solely focus on the dh and also to walk the dh track in the afternoon.
Thursday I ended up going out to lunch with my Nana due to it being her birthday. Afterwards I met Dave Hamilton to go ride the Super D track with him as he knew where it started and ended. Things ended up working out pretty well as while I was waiting at the gate for Dave, Steven Pattle turned up so I caught up with him while I waited for Dave. Once Dave turned up we decided to go walk the Downhill track 1st as Steven had to go and do a quick bit of work on it. Dave dropped us at the top of the track and met us at the bottom. So I got my track walk in. After that we drove to the top of the Super D track with Steven driving the car to the end of track which was pretty choice as the hill to the top of the Super D track is pretty steep and a bit of a long push. I was glad that I had come up early and ridden the Super D track as knew before I reached the end that I wasn’t going to race it. I came to the conclusion that there was too much pedalling for me to enjoy it and that the Downhill was more important to me.
Saturday was a full days practice which I spent quite a lot of my runs following team boss Hendi just trying to keep up with him as it was my last chance to get him to pay for my flights. (We made a deal about half way through the season that if I bet him fair and square (i.e. he didn’t crash) he would pay for my flights to and from Europe) Unfortunately for me, he still bet me come race run on Sunday by the normal amount of roughly 10seconds. Throughout the day I felt I was on a good pace and feeling pretty confident I could take the win.
Friday was the 1st day of practice but it was only a half day. I did a few runs today to learn the track and get the idea of where the track was going and how it rode and with what speed you came into sections. After the practice runs had finished I headed back up the hill to do another track walk. During this track walk I saw a couple of better lines that I hadn’t spotted in the previous walk. I wasn’t liking the track too much, not sure why. Might have just been because I was cruising because the next day I was loving the track.
Sunday rolled around and practice went good. Just after I got my last practice run in though it started to rain and the race began with trying to get tyres changed in timed for seeding runs.
All I can say is I’m glad Brian our team mechanic was there as I could not get the tyres on or off for the life of me. Went up for my seeding run on full muds only to find that it was not the right thing to do, as I was all over the place on the many roots on the tracks. After seeding I wanted to chuck drys on, but we decided to wait to see what the weather was doing. After talking to Hendi we came to the conclusion that cutting my muds down to half was the best solution. So I did that. For my race run I was a bit hesitant as I was worried about crashing on the roots after seedingrun. I was cautious on the roots, way more than I needed to be as I soon discover after it was too late. By the 2nd half of the track I stopped being cautious and rode it like it was dry. Even though I was overly cautious on the top half of the track it still worked out good for me as I stayed up right and managed to take the win. NZ season now done and dusted and I’m undefeated in my first year elite. Pretty stoked and couldn’t have asked for a better season really.
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