MTN national DH series #3

On Thursday 13th May I road tripped down to George in the Maverick Bus with a few friends to take part in the third round of the national series. I forgot how far George really is, took us 15 hours but we eventually got there! I stayed with Hayds relatives, they have a really nice house close to the track so we were comfortable for the weekend, no roughing it at all! We were super excited to walk the track on Friday and get some riding done. The course exceeded our expectations in a good way, the top section was the same as it has been for the last four years, really rough and rocky but very good flow. The middle had a bit more pedalling this year through a flatter pine section. After a long sprint straight it lead into the steepest part of the track known as “the shoot”, a very rocky technical section of track where you had to hang in there coz the arm pump had kicked in at this point. The final section of the track was my favourite, the burms were hard pack and huge with really constant arcs that you could just rail and carry loads of speed. There were two doubles that lead into the final 3 switch back burms then a pedal to the finish line.

My first run went well, didn’t make many mistakes but thinking of it now definitely too conservative at the top. I finished that run with an average time of 3:26, that placed me 8th overall and 6 elite. Gaza always has the best vibe at a DH race, if you need any motivating or race advice he’s the guy to chat too, so that’s exactly what I did. After another prep talk from Oliver Munnik, reminding me of the three P’s in downhill…PEDAL PEDAL PEDAL…So with that in mind I started the second run smooth and focused on letting the bike role and putting power stroke downs rather than just pedalling wildly between technical sections. I made one big mistake in the rock shoot section, came in Hot and saw I was getting a bit loose so jumped on the brakes hard before exiting into the next burm which scrubbed off a lot of momentum. I recovered and tried to pin the rest of the track. My goal was to knock 4 seconds off my time, I managed to knock off three, which I was still happy with. That placed me 5th elite and 7th overall. I’m happy coz that’s two nationals on the podium, so now I want to get a little higher up!

Overall results for the race were:

1) Johann Potgieter 3:12
2) Jonty Neethling 3: 15
3) Chris Nixon 3: 20
4) Tim Bently 3: 20
5) Wesley Augustyn 3:20
6) Hayden Brown 3: 21
7) Travis Browning 3: 23
8) Tiaan Odendaal 3:23
9) Gary Barnard 3: 25
10) Jaco Veldsman 3: 26

What an awesome weekend we had in George, that is definitely one of my favourite tracks in SA. I think Hayds and I smashed out 8 runs on Saturday and still could have done more if we had the time. Good friends made the weekend even better, we got to see some of Georges local disco turf…saw some strange people, but made for an entertaining evening. The Joburg boys were on form and tearing up that dance floor!

Looking forward to the next DH race at Giba.

Ride safe,

TB