| North Island Cup 2009 Rnd1: Rotorua - Race Day |
| Written by Administrator |
| Sunday, 04 January 2009 21:03 |
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What a turn around it was from practice day to race day, clear blue skies and sunshine greeted riders on Sunday morning. Although the track was still slushy to begin with, by race run it was a marginal call between running muds or dry tyres with most riders choosing to stick to muds, simply for not having to bother changing them.
 //BEN CATHRO: ORANGE MOJO There's a stack of euro riders over here for the race season and today it was the euros in the top spot in both the elite classes with Emmeline Ragot of France taking out the women's a fair 7sec ahead of local girl Gabby Molloy and in the men's Ben Cathro, the giant from Scotland was a mere 10th of a second a head of our own Cameron Cole (also giant). Aaari Barrett was already ripping on his new Scott downhill rig just days after getting it all setup, he was looking super fast and swaptastic when he came past us in the bottom section of the course and just under a second off Cathro into 3rd place - not bad for the first race on a new bike! The pro class was always going to be tightly contended with riders being talked about around the pits. Dodzy had been looking super quick in practice, had the track stayed wet, I don't think he would have been going any slower than he was in the dry, he'd been ripping it up in the wet on Saturday on his New Zero prototype downhill bike. Also looking super smooth in both wet and dry was Glenn Haden, back from an oriental mission and on the 2 Stage again, rounding out the top 5, just 1.83 seconds behind Cathro and showing just how competitive the class was.  //DODZY ON THE ZERO Look out for the production model gear box bikes available for sale later on this summer [FULL GALLERY OF PHOTOS HERE] Open Men's was the come back class with a bunch of riders coming back into the circuit after a season or six off. Des Curry showed he's still got what it takes, showing his face on the national scene for the first time in several years on a 73 year old turner with a time that was just outside the top 10 in Pro. Also showing his face in the national scene for the first time in a while was the mongrel himself, now turned all respectable and mentor like, Byron Scott, just behind Desbian into second place in open after a bit of a spill on the second corner in seeding (possibly nervous?) Craig "Cowboy" McGinnity is another rider that some of you young sprogs may not remember, he's been out of the scene for a while now but was back and was ripping in up, pulling some mean x ups with his single crown forks. And of course, who could forget the world's drunkest downhiller, James Baron, sober for the second race in a row on his morewood izumi mountain sheep.  [FULL GALLERY OF PHOTOS HERE] With a handful of Juniors stepping up into pro this year we saw a few new names in on the podiums, and a lot of familiar ones still, but I think it's the first time we haven't seen any juniors posting top 10 pro times at a national event in a while (I could be wrong of course) Vaughan Woolhouse (finally in u19!) was the fastest junior of the day with a 3:39 which would have put him 15th in Pro. There was a little bit of carnage in the u17 class unfortunately with NZRIDE's newest team rider, Brandon Ransfield concussing himself, but was still able to finish his run with a respectable 4:08, in 11th place. News wasn't quite so good for Auckland's Ryan Jones who was taken off in an ambulance with a suspected broken Pelvis. There were several other's wlaking around with sligns and casts over the weekend also with the boggy track making life difficult for many riders. The open women's class was again one of the largest we've seen in years with an impressive 9 entries and again, largely junior girls. Absent in this class was Auckland's Charlotte Clouston who was a casualty of Byron Scott's coaching (not really), breaking her ankle in training and now looking at a good few months off the bike unfortunately. Oh and let's not forget hartail class, where until a big wadski in race run, Mike Skinner was making most of open men look fairly stupid, still managing pretty impressive 4:16 on a hardtail, winning the class, just over 7 seconds ahead of Jerym Soames. Body Armour: That aside, it was another well run race, possibly a little rushed on Sunday morning, but we got there in the end and those of us that came from far and wide made it home in decent time. Big thanks to Dave Hamilton, proving you can organise an event and win it! Although, I did see him spending a suspiciously long time around the timing tent after his run "helping" the time keepers! And of course to the massive gang of volunteers (even Zach Baker) who marshaled, drove and watched over the course during the weekend and of course bikenz and Hamish as always for providing a superb and accurate timing service. Looking forward to the next round in a couple of weeks.
Results: ELITE MEN ELITE WOMEN
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| Last Updated ( Monday, 05 January 2009 21:44 ) |
