RSA National Cup round 2 2013 - Cascades

This past weekend I raced the second round of the national series which was held on the same track as the world champs will be in August.
I arrived on the Wednesday before hand so I could settle in and do a bit of riding before hand. Thanks to Sam Bull and Hayden Brown for putting me up at their places for the week. On the Thursday we headed down to the track for a track walk to see if we could find any new lines. We didnt manage to find much but it was good to have a look at all the sections. Friday saw us doing some practice runs in the sunshine which was amazing! The track was so much fun, I really enjoy the track in the dry as its really fast and has lots of jumps. I got in 5 runs on Friday and was looking forward to racing. On Saturday I did another 4 runs due to having a flat tyre in one run. I made a point of not doing any more runs because the track is very physical and I wanted to make sure I had energy for Sunday.

Sunday morning rolled around and the weather was awesome, blue skies and hot. We got to the track around 8am for our one and only practice/warm up run of the day. I smashed out one full run and then headed back to the car for some down time until the seeding run. I had a very good feeling and I knew it would be good if I hit all my lines and kept it smooth.

It was soon time for seeding and I set off at the top focusing on being smooth and not pushing too hard so I could save some energy for finals. I came through in the top spot which was awesome as I knew I had more in the tank for finals. Tim bentley was in second spot just a few splits behind me. We had about 2 hours until finals and I just tried to stay calm and relax.

However it was no time at all until we had to head up for racing. I got to the top about 30 mins before my start time and I made sure I had a good 15 min warm up before heading to the start. It was a bit nerve racking whilst doing my warm up as all the other riders had gone down to the start already. I was up there doing my own thing to get ready. I was confident that my timing was good and sure enough I was spot on, I got to the start gate just before hand and soon I was off!
I was pushing hard at the top but maintaining a good flow and keeping smooth. I pushed hard on the pedalling and throughout the bottom section to come through in 2nd place just 0.25 sec off the winner, Jonty Neethling. I am pleased with the 2nd place but to be so close to the win is a bit frustraiting.

Results:

1. Jonty Neethling: 3:56:34
2. Stefan Garlicki: 3:56:59
3. Tiaan Odendaal: 3:59:38
4. Alisdar Fey: 3:59:58
5. Hayden Brown: 3:59:81

Thanks again to the people behind me and my awesome sponsors! INVESTEC, morewood, seattle coffee co, virgin active, science 2 sport, leatt, bell, adidas eyewear, cycles africa( hayes/sun ringle/manitou/odi), csixx, red bull and spank.

I am pleased with the start to the season and I want to keep the ball rolling heading into europe!

Until next time.....

WP Provincial round 2 2013

This past weekend we had the second round of the WP provincial race series which was held in Paarl. The event saw us racing on the same track as we raced earlier in the year at the AVR DH challenge.

The event was not really on my calendar but I thought I might as well use it as another training day :P The race was a one day event which meant practice in the morning and racing started at 2:30pm. The weather was great apart from really strong winds. I was not feeling as comfy as normal for some reason, my runs were a bit scratchy with some mistakes which you can’t afford on that track. In the last run of practice I nailed it which gave me some confidence heading into the race runs. I knew that I would have to be perfect in order to take the win with multi time national champ, Johann Potgieter there. The track was breaking up slightly with made a few of the corners really loose just to make things a bit more interesting J

Finally it was time for race runs and I was heading off second to last. The start of the track was altered slightly from the previous event which I didn’t realise and did not have a chance to ride the section before the race run. It was not a big change however it meant you came into the first corner quite bit faster and I would need to get on the brakes slightly earlier.

I set off in my run and entered the first corner slightly too fast which meant overshooting slightly and having to brake hard in order to stay on the track. I was really bummed about this as I knew that no matter what I did from then on, it would be hard to lay down a good time after the mistake. I also made a few more mistakes in the next few turns as I was a bit rattled, but after that I had a great run down to the bottom. I came across the line in first place with Johann last on track. However I knew that unless he also made a mistake that he would take the win because on a short track like this you have no room for error. As I suspected he came across 1.7 sec faster than me to take the win.

I am still happy considering the mistake and this is downhill, you can’t have a perfect run every time.

Top 3:

1.       Johann Potgieter: 1:44:21

2.       Stefan Garlicki: 1:45:91

3.       Adi Van Der Merwe: 1:50:29

This was a good exercise and I am excited heading into the national next weekend in Pietermaritzburg. Thanks again to all who have helped me thus far and my awesome sponsors:

INVESTEC, morewood, Seattle coffee co, virgin active, John Wakefield @ science2sport, Adidas eyewear, Bell helmets, Leatt protectives, Odi, Sun ringle, Hayes, Cycles Africa, Red Bull ZA, Spank and Csixx

Until next time….,