Round 1, day 3 and it’s action time! A short practice session in the afternoon before riders lined up, waited for the beeps and pedaled out of the start hut for near on 2 minutes of downhill joy! Well joy for most, there were a few crashes, that said, it could have been worse as Eagle is a track where you can’t let your concentration lapse at all. There are no fire roads to ‘take a break’, the whole track requires commitment.
As the B group practice and racing finished a bigger and bigger crowd started forming trackside, the bottom finish arena with its tight switchbacks, rock drop and jumps proved to be quite popular.
To kick racing off we look at the Under 19 females, with Tegan Molloy the hot favourite she didn’t disappoint taking the win by some 20+ seconds from Ellie Wale (and setting the fastest female time of the day).
Next we move onto the Under 19 male class, always a large group with riders keen to impress the powers that be so they can have the honour of representing Australia at the World Champs. Australian team coach and all round good guy, Jared Rando, was on hand over the weekend chatting with many riders, his years of racing knowledge invaluable. Talking to Jared he even said he may race a few rounds himself so look out for that (not that team Giant need any more riders, it seemed every second rider going past was on the team!).
Looking at results and we can see that Matthew McCorkell had a flying first run but couldn’t quite back it up in finals, eventually finishing 15th. The top 10 was a quality field, looking further at the top 5 revealed an excellent quality of riders. Aiden Varley was fifth, local rider Matt Taylor was fourth, impressive considering Matt’s tender age, in third just three seconds off the win was Ben Hill and in second Max Warshawsky. This left one rider, Andrew Crimmins, with the number one spot – he took the victory by some 1.96 seconds, made all the more impressive by the fact he had a mechanical during his run that couldn’t see him pedal the bottom section!
Moving onto Elite and more specifically the Women’s class we saw Danielle Beecroft step up to Elite and take the win in her first attempt, the ever reliable Sarah Booth was second with Michelle Crisp in third place.
The pointy end of the day was the Elite Men, after seeding there was talk that riders would go under 2 minutes come finals. We would have to wait all the way until the last rider to see if this was true and while no rider dipped under the 2 minute barrier they got close! As with any Australian National race it was a very competitive field, names all through the top 20 were capable of pushing for a podium spot. With a DNF in seeding Angus Maddern hit the hill early in the piece and set the time to beat, his time of 2.08.66 was enough for 15th at the end of the day. Whilst we could talk about everyone’s run it was David McMillan who snuck in under the 2.05 mark at 2.04.36 to grab fifth and set himself up for a good series. With it being a three race series a strong start was crucial and David was understandably happy! Fourth went to Dean Lucas, a rider who we know is keen to hit the World Cups this year. Third place was the biggest unknown of the weekend, Josh Button returning to racing and showing he still has it! Sure enough the top spot came down to an SA showdown, first off was Troy Brosnan who took the hot seat at the bottom of his run. With only Connor Fearon left to come it was going to be a local win one way or another, tearing the last corners, as the crowd chanted his name, Connor crossed the line and up flashed his time: 2.00.89, a winning time! Made all the sweeter by the fact it was his birthday.
Join us in a few weeks for round 2, before then we still have a large (very large) number of pics to show you guys from the weekend.
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