As Inside Line heads into its 20th race season for round 2 we headed to good old Fox Creek and the infamous Bowl track. With the weather in Adelaide during the week being wet everyone was bracing for another wet Fox race (surprise surprise!). However, Mother Nature smiled kindly on us with excellent weather over the weekend, by finals Sunday some riders were saying the track conditions were as good as they had experienced. Check out some of the images below from RF Photographics (www.facebook.com/rfphotographics – head over and give them a like they do great work).
Slightly ominous on the drive up to Fox but the good weather prevailed.In fact the weekend conditions turned out almost perfect!The track was similar to it has been for any years so riders knew what to expect.Angus Maddern on the hunt, Angus is always a contender at Inside Line races.The training rig was out, things are getting serious…..Sussing lines.Blurring through the trees.Everything was green due to the winter conditions.There was a good spectator turnout, it must have been everyone treating their mums to a day out of racing for mothers day!There were probably a lot of mums worried about their off spring ending up like this! Fortunately nothing was too serious…Tacky conditions come finals!Style check!Connor Fearon was always going to be the man to beat, you don’t argue with World Cup speed!There were a lot of trail/enduro type bikes at this race and in fact 2 of the top 5 elite riders were on them!
In the end, Sunday afternoon in sunny conditions the finals kicked off, as always there was good racing across the classes and the spectators were there to cheer. In the under 19 men it was Drew Gartery 2.28 seconds clear ahead of Darcy Grooby followed by James Chambers. Elite women was taken out by Cami Miller 3.91 seconds ahead of Moira Love followed by Simone Cameron. In the elite men’s class it was the favourite, Connor Fearon, who took the win by 4.82 seconds. His time was 2.16.47, interestingly enough Connor himself said he was chasing sub 2.15. Second was Angus Maddern followed by Cam Ryan on the first of the enduro bikes, Steve Gebert 4th and Simon Buzzacot rounded out the top 5.
Never really in doubt if he kept it up right Connor Fearon took the win.
The third and final round of the Gravity Enduro South Australia (GESA) series was held at Fox Creek up in the Adelaide Hills, a favorite destination for riders of all disciplines. Hard to believe that the series is drawing to a close already, it seems like only yesterday we were at the inaugural event at Craigburn farm.
Fox had some of the biggest climbs of any of the events yet but this also translated to some of the longest and fastest downhills, earn your turn as they say! Still the dreaded climbing was made easier by the fact you could cruise up, chatting with mates (unless you have one of those mates who is super competitive about everything and they had to turn the up into a race too a�� everyone knows someone like that right?!). Despite initially being slated as a five stage race in the end three stages were used to determine the victors. This included the new Green Smoothie trail which was built by IMBA and is an absolute blast to ride!
Elite Men:
1. Andy ClarkeA�13.05
2. Brad McDonnell 13.39
3. Alex Waddicor 13.54
Elite Women:
1. Anna Puckridge 16.37
2. Bria Smith 17.15
3. Nicole Jefferies 20.21
Under 19 Men:
1. Cam Ryan 13.08
2. Curtis Dowdell 13.44
3. Darcy Grooby 14.19
Good racing across the classes, Cam Ryan won Under 19 but would have placed 2nd in Elite.A�With 90 or so competitors and it was well run and good end to a successful first season, see you next year!
Dust! Finally a dry Fox race after battling mother nature over the past few months. Interesting feet positioning… Due to the lack of water the track started to get blown out in places giving riders another challenge.
After a few weeks since the last SA State race we were back at Fox for the next one! With gorgeous weather and fun track there were no complaints though. Fox Long was the location, as this track is open to the public basically all year round plenty of riders were up to speed early, the short turn around on shuttles were helping as well. No big news from the day of practice, a few injuries, get better soon all who succumbed but overall it was Sunday everyone was keen for.
A bit of last minute maintenance? Or was it the two days of riding leading up to your race run? Whatever the case we saw a few riders tweaking in the pits Sunday morning.Running off the track was bad enough with the blueberry’s (spare a thought for marshals and photographers who had to traverse it!) but with this prickly little fella an off the track excursion could have been really interesting!Like magpies to shiny objects, photographers get drawn to riders with colour!
There was good racing across all the classes, with a solid turn out of riders. The big draw card categories for most people are the Under 19 and Elite Men but it was great to see more girls out and racing too. Matt Taylor and Angus Maddern threw down in seeding to keep their form of late going and took the top times for seeding in Under 19’s and Elite respectively.
Of course it is not only just Elite and Under 19 riders that come out for race day!
With Inside Line running everything so smoothly and rider numbers not quite as big as they previously have been racing was done by 2.30pm. It was a very familiar looking podium too!
James Chambers just floating along, two wheels off the ground!Taking selfies to the next level?! Not quite the Adelaide Independent Racing guys always put out some good footage of their weekend.There was definitely a few lines on some part of the tracks, inside, outside, high, low it was all there!Mmm sunlight warm weather is close by, good conditions taken advantage of here by Matt Kelly.
To the racing and Matt Taylor held onto his number one spot from seeding in Under 19’sA�with a 2.13.83, ahead of Connor Clancy and James Chambers. In Elite Women Moira Love took the win from Simone Cameron but both riders were riding well as they went past us. To Elite Men and rider after rider just kept coming through going faster and faster! The top 5 looked like this; Cam Ryan in 5th after battling sickness leading into the race, 4th to the always consistent Ngari Jenkins, 3rd to Steve Gebert another rider who is very professional in what he does, 2nd place went to Will Rischbieth who is “taking the year off riding” and the number one position was Angus Maddern who cracked on with a 2.08.66. There was talk of riders ducking down to the 2.05 which didn’t quite happen but in the end it didn’t matter as the racing was good anyway.
Cal Morrison back form Whistler and into 7th place.Steve Gebert flew past us near one of the high speed sections before dropping in to continue his run.The Elite Men’s winner Angus Maddern taking care of business.
That is a wrap for the SA State Series for 2013, the next race on the calendar is the State Champs at a different Willunga track, we are keen to see the changes!
Good old Fox Creek, you never know what you are in for!
Hang on we hear you say, race 4? You just put up race 5 the other day…! Well after some rather inclement weather RoundA� 4 was postponed until after round 5, make sense?! When we heard that Matt Bird Photography would be heading out to the race we threw down a challenge for them, shoot the race on film! So all the warm images you see are from the ‘by-gone’ era of film!
Ah the warm glow of film! Will Badger bursts out of this corner.
Conditions weren’t dry and dusty but they were a big improvement from the weekend the race was cancelled. Pretty standard track at Fox – Pattos Curse for this round, it has some real off camber sections, some really good turns and a big jump into the finish area.
Keeping warm was the name of the game!The big jump into the finish area, Tom Matto puts on a show.
The future of the sport, the Under 19 racers, fought it out with the victory going to Matt Taylor, his time of 1.55.23 was also the second fastest time of the day, quite an impressive effort! Racing was super tight in the Elite category with the top 5 separated by less than 1.5 seconds! In the end it was Angus Maddern, who has recently returned from Canada including racing the Mont Sainte Anne World Cup, who took the victory.
Matt Taylor took the Under 19’s victory and the second fastest time of the day, super impressive!
The next raceA�in the series we head back to Fox! This time Long, it is bound to be another good weekend of racing.
Kellen Ewens has put together this nice little edit from the first SA state round at Fox CreekA�(you can read our raceA�report and check out the picsA�here) for everyone to enjoy.
Insideline is one of the oldest downhill clubs in Australia (and therefore the world?!) and the weekend saw their 19th season/year start at Fox Creek on the bowl track.
Fox Creek is one of the classic race venues on the South Australian calendar.Weather was good, especially considering how it can be at Fox.Everyone was happy to be back racing.There were some familiar races back from races we have seen across Oz, here is Henry Blake repping in SA.We understand mate, we understand! It is a tough gig being a photo-g but Kane wasn’t even sure what was happening at this moment!The track was very similar to as previously raced with a few tweaks from the trail fairies.Will Rischbieth is another rider who we have seen across the country this year already.Matt Taylor keeps his good form in SA going and took the win in Under 19s.Haha what is going on in this photo?! Oh the captions, we call it the downhill dance!
The results from the weekend are below;
Elite Women:
1. Philippa Rostan 2:45.312
2. Molly Payne 2:54.653
3. Moira Love 3:12.970
4. Sheree Dickinson 3:35.44
Elite Men:
1. Angas Maddern 2:17.190
2. Steve Gebert 2:17.440
3. Will Rischbieth 2:18.520
4. Craig Yates 2:18.920
5. Steve Marsh 2:21.070
Under 19 Men:
1. Matthew Taylor 2:19.380
2. Curtis Dowdell 2:19.770
3. Cody Barker 2:21.110
4. James Chambers 2:21.820
5. Conor Clancy 2:23.730
It was a very happy Angus Maddern who took the win, just from Steve Gebert amongst a strong field. The next race is Willunga, see you there!
