After my last race report from Napier I headed down to sunny Nelson for the first round of the South Island Cup. The track at Kaka hill in the Maitai valley is a beast, its steep, loose, rocky, has big jumps and more than a couple of blown out corners all ready and waiting to swallow your front wheel entirely and send you off track into the gorse bushes that litter the hillside.
For this race I went down a couple of days early to walk the track and see if there were any shuttles that I could sneak onto to try and familiarise myself with the track. Being a local here is a huge advantage due to the intimidating nature of the course and if you ride it regularly and get comfortable with it you can ride a lot faster so to do well this weekend would be a challenge but I was determined to do my best.
Practice day dawned and it only took 200 meters of the roughest track I had ridden thus far to know I needed to change a few things about my setup. I got to the bottom of the track an immediately put another 6 clicks of rebound damping on both my rear shock and forks to try and counteract the skittish nature of the track and to stop my rear wheel from bouncing around too much through the rock gardens. I also lowered my forks a bit to move more weight forward, rolled my bars back just a tad and changed the compression settings on my forks to react better to the continual large rocks I was riding into and over.
With my revised setup I headed up the hill again to see what difference the changes had made to way my bike reacted to the track. Right from the first corner I was blown away with how much better my bike felt for this course, I was no longer being bucked around in the rock gardens and lowering the forks helped to get more weight over the front wheel making the bike more balanced through the rocks and also better whilst in the corners. This new set-up meant I was hitting stuff a lot faster and was able to hit all the lines I had seen while I was track walking.
The rest of practice day went by in a blur, I was having such a good time on the course I pushed out 8 runs in the 30 degree heat leaving me suitably tired at the end of the day but happy in the knowledge that I was liking the course and that I was feeling confident for race day.
Race day dawned another Bluebird day with the temperatures supposed to reach 30 degrees agai it was going to be a great day for racing, I jumped in the shuttle to the top and went down for my first run of the morning. Overnight there had been some work done to the track which was definitely a good thing, a lot of loose rocks had been pushed off the side of the track making the whole thing a lot less dangerous and more fun.
When my seeding run came around I knew I was carrying good form into this race and just tried to relax and have a safe, solid run. I left the start gate and cruised through the top section, out onto the rocks and knew from the trail of dust that there would be some passing happening a little bit further down the course. I crossed the skid site, threw a bit of a whip over the hip jump there and then dropped off the edge into the berm and just about went straight into the rider in front of me, luckily he moved over a little further down so I wasn’t held up too much, I had a good lower section but right before the last jump I caught up to my friend Oscar Tatom who had gone down 2 riders in front of me and had a crash, I knew Oscar wasn’t hitting the big last jump so I gave him a bit of space and still managed to just get over the jump and still qualify in 5th position on a 3.34 even with catching the 2 riders. I was happy with my run but when I found out that the top 2 qualifiers, local boys Tom Winwood and Jake Boylett were 11 seconds ahead of me on 3.23.92 and 3.23.93 respectively I knew I had some serious work to do if I was to even stand a chance of knocking 11 seconds off my seeding time.
I headed back up to the top of the hill a little bit apprehensive about the task at hand and when called for my run I knew I was going to have to do something special to get that 11 seconds off my time. I started my run and immediately stepped it up a notch, pedalling in places where I had previously been rolling and braking much less than my seeding run, everything was going to plan until just after the skid site where I was red flagged by a marshal, A red flag effectively means that you have to stop because a rider is down but because of the steepness of the section of track I was on stopping was more than difficult and I luckily managed to slow down enough that I managed to weave in between the marshal and injured rider (Jamie Lyall from Kapiti) and carry on. I still had a good bottom section and stopped the clock in 3.29, a solid 5 seconds quicker than my seeding time but still 6 seconds slower than Tom and Jake’s seeding times. However because I had been slowed down so much I was asked by the race officials if I wanted to go up and have another run, I said yes and pretty much jumped straight in the truck and headed straight back up to the top ready for my re-run.
The following 3 minutes of my life were filled with some of the most crazy riding I think I have ever done. I knew I had to step it up to the next level if I was to beat Tom and Jake and so as soon as I left the gate I just started pedalling. The track was a lot more blown out than seeding making it a lot harder to go fast on but I was determined to go fast as I could and hopefully get the result I was after. As I was going through the bottom section of the course I had no idea of my speed or what my time was but it felt quick, I came around the last corner and off the last jump the fastest I had been all weekend and pedalled across the line to stop and look at the timing board and see what time I had done.
I knew that I had had a crazy run, with heaps of loose moments where I could have crashed but wasn’t sure if that had meant I was going fast or just out of control. When 3.22.68 came up on the timing board followed by 1st place I was stoked but still apprehensive as I had another 5 guys to come down all who could take that off me. In the end it was down to Tom Winwood, fastest qualifier and last man down to try and knock me off but when his time read 3.25.14 I knew that I had finally won my first ever national downhill race and man I was stoked!!! Especially after my crashes in Napier, to get on top of the box for the first time in my Burkes top and to be able to thank everyone that helped me to get to that position was such a good feeling and hopefully the first of many!!
Now I am just relaxing in Nelson preparing for the next round which is also being held here in Nelson on Fringed hill on a completely new track, bring it on!
