Nowa Nowa 4 Hour Enduro Report – 30-Oct-2010
The race started well and the rain stopped while riders were out on the first lap. The descent of track 2 was quite slick for the first couple of laps but as the sun came out it started to dry out and become very tacky and fun to ride. The fastest laps on the first course were around 17 minutes. As conditions improved and riders headed out onto the second (much longer and harder) course the times increased with the fastest laps on this course around 29 minutes.
Current club championship leader Brad Fisher got off to a shocker of a start with 2 flats on the first 2 laps. To make things worse he broke the valve on his replacement tube and had to run back to base. This gave perpetual bridesmaid Brian Wallace the chance to put in a big effort and eventually win the race on 11 laps in 4hours 30 minutes being the only solo rider to complete 11 laps. Second place went to regular podium placer Ashley Higman on 10 laps in 4:16. Third was MTB newbie Vaughan Kingston on 10 laps in 4.25. Not bad on a borrowed bike. Brad Fisher didn’t give up all day and still managed 9 laps despite losing almost an hour running and fixing his bike.
The womens race as very close all day. Jenny Simpson and Caroline Farrell were within 1 minute of each other all day. From all reports Jenny was flying on the climbs only to be passed nearly every lap by Caroline on the descents. The track change to a longer track for the second half of the race eventually allowed Jenny to take the lead and come in 1st with 9 laps in 4.20. Caroline was a very close second with 9 laps in 4.21. It was great to see such a battle in the womens section of a GMTB event.
The only junior in the race was young Sam Mitchell from Orbost who completed 9 laps. Another impressive effort for a first time MTB racer. Hopefully we will see him at more GMTB events in future.
The teams event was taken out by local triathletes Ryan Cross and Tim Boote on 11 laps in 4.06. We apologize for making a mistake with the presentations of the teams category. Getting it right with the manual timing and a small event crew was a challenge in itself. The correct results had Stephen and Julie Blake in second place on 10 laps in 4.25 and 3rd place went to Jason Haas and Wayne O’Connor on 9 laps in 4.04.
Overall the event was very successful in trying conditions and the tracks have held up very well to the weather conditions. The other events that made up the festival also ran successfully with the Nowa Nowa 360 navigation ride being the main highlight on the Sunday. This had riders plotting their own course to checkpoints throughout the township and surrounding forests and having fun along the way with deciphering codes, digging their hands into buckets of slime to collect prizes, decorating their bikes, having their faces painted, answering trivia questions, creating artworks in true Nowa Nowa style and performing songs for the course marshals along the way. Hopefully we will see more events of this kind in Nowa Nowa in future.
The next GMTB race will be held at Glengarry on Sunday November 28th.