BARJARG, Vic. -- RESULTS and RACE REPORT
Race Report:
By: Steven Mathews
Four weeks after Long Gully was blown into a dusty, fiery pit of doom, the traveling circus that is the Victorian State Series rocked up at the little town of Barjarg. And by little town, I mean Barjarg is a general store on the side of a highway for no apparent reason, but I digress.
This second round of the VSS, hosted by SMBP, drew similarly huge numbers to the first round, with nearly 270 entries. Riders came from far and wide – and I mean that, we’re talking “Western Australia” far and wide - just to ride this manliest of manly tracks. Not to take anything away from the girls who raced, but there is no denying that riding Barjarg requires balls in either a literal or a figurative sense.
The track is full on from the word go, if you’re not turtling your pants in a steep rock chute, you’re hucking over or into other rocks at high speed, and the pace is relentless. Flowing berms, rocks, steep sections, rocks, jumps, more rocks, off camber, even more rocks, the track has enough to test anyone’s mettle. Unfortunately the demanding nature of the track took its toll, with plenty of flat tyres, lots of derailleur carnage and worst of all, a few serious injuries requiring the ambos. Best wishes to anyone who got hurt.
Transport was well coordinated as has been the norm for the Vic Series the past couple of seasons, but the huge turnout meant shuttle queues were unavoidable. The event was run smoothly, and there’s not much to dislike about on-site camping with MTB movies played on a projector on Saturday night! It also seems that Victorian downhill has entered the glam-rock phase, with Gobby and Patto, who wished to remain anonymous, inadvertently starting the Pimpest Motorhome competition. Hard to argue with a full-size coach, yet a trailer featuring a double bed as well as kitchen, toilet, shower and bike storage certainly wins some points for fully-sickness.
The clock ticked over to Race Day O’Clock and everyone who’d been on the piss the previous night was up by the crack of 10:30, whilst many riders were ready to roll on the first shuttles at 7:30. A few practice runs, a few more mechanicals, a couple more injuries and it was time to race. Will Gower of WA, and Mikkael Kinnunen, also of WA, qualified fastest in U19s and Elite respectively, with almost identical times of 2:58. A few of the usual big hitters in Elite took themselves out in their qualifying runs, with Jarah Breese not making the cut, nor Trevwah Burke after injuring his thumb.
The Expert men laid down some very respectable qualifying times, notably with Ash Parry setting a time that would have qualified him in Elite… on a singlespeed hardtail. Karl Peel blew away the rest of the veteran men with a time that would have qualified him second in elite, despite having no chain for about 80% of the track, with Barjarg’s track builder, hucker smurf and allen key courier Ben Watkins taking second, while Leonie Picton cruised to another 20+ second victory in the Elite Women.
Race runs for the quick blokes rolled around quicker than expected given the huge rider turnout, maybe due to the large number of injury/mechanical-related DNS’s. Fastest Expert qualifier James Hunt took out Expert by a big margin, with a stonkingly fast 3:01 that would have put him 6th place in Elite. Mikkael Kinnunen knocked 4 seconds off his qualifying time to take out Elite men with a flying 2:54, but even this was trumped by Will Gower’s time of 2:53 which took out U19s with the fastest time of the day.
Another awesome race on another sick, sick track. Great weather, top notch organization, drunken campfire shenanigans and lots of rocks - to those who didn’t bother going this time: don’t miss it again! See you all at Baw Baw.
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The results are up on www.smbp.com.au
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Originally Posted by dhlouie101
