Sa National #4 - Hartebeespoort - 31 July 2011

After hearing about the track from some of the Joburg riders, I could not wait to start the trip to the last round of the National series held at Stonehouse, Hartebeespoort. I was very prepared for this race, and although Gauteng had been dry and no rain was forecast I even packed my rain pants and jacket. We left home at 3:00 am on Friday morning, hoping to miss Joburg rush hour. My dad and I shared the driving on the way there, and against my liking, forced me to man-up and drive in the dreaded 'Joburg traffic'. It just so happens that we arrived there during roadworks, and I had to make my way through heavy traffic. We did however arrive safely, so the weekend was off to good start.

The track was just what I was hoping for: tight in places, technical, rocky and very loose. My practise runs on Friday went well, but I didn't feel like I was going very fast. Saturday went much better for me, and I started to feel some speed coming on as I did more runs. The track was changing everytime I rode it because there were so many loose rocks which was going to make things very interesting come race day.

I had decided that I was only going to do one run down the track before my race runs as the track was very demanding on the body and I wanted to conserve energy. I was going down behind my team mate Kyle Davids, who had dislodged a rock that fell into my line. I came down the one steep section to find this rather large rock in my line. I could do nothing about it, and I went sailing over bars onto the rocks. I didn't even finish the run and I rode down to the bottom on the road. My elbow, ribs, and hand were very bruised and my hand swelled up. I had to ice my body and try and get my mind right for my race runs. The push to the top was hard, so I headed up early for my race runs.

My first run was good and I managed to keep it together to the bottom. I made a minor mistake in the middle of my run which wasn't very costly. The bottom pedalling section was hard work because of all the rocks, and my pedals had some gashes in them from the rocks. I finished my run and had a good time of 1:50.047. I was 1st Junior after the first runs which I was really stoked about.

My second run also went well. I felt good on the track, the bike was performing really well, as usual, and I finished my run with a time of 1:51.360. Alastair Fey then came down with a faster time than me, and so did Tiaan Odendaal. My team mate and I were both in the same hundredth of a second and I was 0.043 secs faster than him.

I finished 3rd in Junior and 9th overall, and won some really cool Skull Candy earphones. The race organisers did a great job and the goodie bags that all of the riders received were really cool. Thank you so much to Andre van Aarde from Rush Sports for the awesome setup I have on the Morewood, and to Adrenaline Cycles for all the help this year. I have asolutely loved every minute of this season and I cannot wait for next year's racing to start.

 

PHOTOS : CSharp Photography and Erlo Brown Photography