Well thanks to Martin and Juliane for a great mountain biking Christmas party, the last event of the year certainly was a success.
Yes it was stinking hot on Saturday, we carry a thermometre to 24-races (usually to see how friggen cold it is for night laps - not this time!) and it read 39 in the shade around 3-4pm on Saturday. I did a lap around then and there were a lot of people out on track struggling, checked with everyone that they were ok. I have to say that the MTB ethic was alive and well, I stopped for one guy who was not looking good and he insisted he could roll back. A few minutes later another rider came up and offered to ride back with him slowly, offered him water out of his camelbak etc. I left them together as I had only a small bottle to offer. I saw lots of people helping others, waiting with others for first aid/marshals ... no one was left alone out there it was great to see!
I have no idea how the solos got through the heat on Saturday, I was going out soaking wet (thanks to the kids paddling pool in our camp) and on my hottest lap still felt sick by the end. I was only out in it for just over 30 minutes, people who were doing solo or even just riding slow laps - damn that would have been tough. Lots of exposed areas of track in full too, often on climbs - brutal!
By 5pm things cooled down to the balmy low 30s and the sun was clouded over so it became way more bearable. Then of course Sunday stayed in the 20s even though that sun was still hot on the climbs. Lucky though we missed any decent rain and so we never had to be diverted onto the "B track" for rainy weather.
I was doing the 6+6 so wasn't out on track at night, can't say I saw any shortcutting myself (in reference to above poster). We do have sneaking suspicions that a young bloke in our camp may have been short cutting the course tho so that may have been who your team mate saw. He was struggling with the length of the track and the team came last in category anyway so some gentle education is definitely in order, but we figured it wasn't going to change the results to didn't do anything official about it. Apologies for that.
Thanks again to Martin and Juliane, all the volunteers who did timing/marshaling etc. Props to photographers out on course in stupid heat. But the biggest thanks goes to the first aiders there, they were definitely working overtime in that heat.