Thredbo Cannonball Festival -

The classic race venue, Thredbo, had a few tweaks applied for the race, many involved getting more air which isn't a bad thing as Connor Surgeon shows! — The classic race venue, Thredbo, had a few tweaks applied for the race, many involved getting more air which isn’t a bad thing as Connor Surgeon shows! Image: MBN Photography

Here in Australia we are really starting to see an explosion of these one off events, which combine a few different race styles, a range of non bike riding related activities (we know right?!) and relatively good prize money! The Thredbo Cannonball Festival had all of this, with names like the Hannahs, Brosnan, Moir, Eaton, Crimmins,A�Boyer, McMillan, Cory, Lucas, Molloy andA�Beecroft all on hand to get some of the $13,000 in prize money this was always going to beA� big event!

There were a large number of pros on hand, here Troy Brosnan throws down a bit of style. Image: David Blucher

The track for the main downhill race received some tweaks before the weekend and also used more of the high speed fire road near the top of the track, one of the biggest challenges though would be the weather wit snow covering the top of the hill!

Sean Martin near the top of the track, you can see the snow behind him, fortunately by race time it wasn't as much of an issue as it could have been! Image: MBN Photography. — Sean Martin near the top of the track, you can see the snow behind him, fortunately by race time it wasn’t as much of an issue as it could have been! Image: MBN Photography.

Apart from the downhill race there was also a flow race on the single tracks lining Kosciuszko, a pump track challenge as well as a whip competition so plenty to see and do. Add to this the Potbelleez and DJ Nino Brown on hand in the village to keep the tunes flowing and you have set the scene for a pretty epic event! In fact all the riders we asked were raving about the event so let’s hope we see more and more of these events all year around.

You can do better whips then your mate?! Finally a chance to prove it with the whip comp.

Troy Brosnan took out the opening event which was the pump track challenge. David McMillan and Luke Ellison were the two winners in the whip off competition, Ben Cory won the Flow racing showing all the youngens he still has ‘it’ whatever it is!

David 'The Whip Doctor' McMillan shows us why he took the watermelons ($100s) for the whip competition! Image: David Blucher — David ‘The Whip Doctor’ McMillan shows us why he took the watermelons ($100s) for the whip competition! Image: David Blucher

For the big event seeding revealed who would be in the mix, Troy Brosnan topped the time sheet 2 seconds ahead of Mic Hannah with ‘local’ Andrew Crimmins in third. For the women Tracey Hannah had a formidable 12 second advantage over second placed Tegan Molloy but with racing anything is possible!

Tegan Molloy second in qualifying. Image: MBN Photography

Nothing like chairlifts to smash out the runs! Image: MBN Photogrpahy — Nothing like chairlifts to smash out the runs! Image: MBN Photography

Moving on to finals and Tegan Molloy brought the gap down to under 10 seconds but Tracey showed her experience by taking a strong victory, Tegan second and Danielle Beecroft was in third.

Tracy Hannah, a resounding winner by nearly 10 seconds in Pro Women. Image: David Bluchar

The Pro Men’s class was always going to be a hard one to call such was the depth of the field! Mic Hannah brought home 5th saying he had a good run but simply left too much in the tank, Josh Button showed us he still remembers how to ride despite taking the season off from international competition with 4th, local Thomas Crimmins took out 3rd. We definitely saw a competition of what a lot of people already knew, Australia has another real Junior World Champs contender in Andrew Crimmins, the young rider from Bredbo beat out Troy Brosnan to first place by just over 2 seconds! Troy said he was simply beaten byA�a faster rider, exciting times for Australian downhilling! Well done Andrew, enjoy the $5000!