Well Round 2 of the MTBA National Downhill series, hosted by the Hunter Mountain Bike Association, has been run and won over this past weekend. And what an event it was!
Saturday’s runs started with an open practice session. The weather was not on our side and there were light showers rolling through on and off throughout the morning’s practice – fortunately this settled the dust on what was a very dry track and provided a lot of grip for the riders.
Lunchtime saw the end of practice and the official opening of the event with a Smoking Ceremony and Welcome to Country performed by Uncle Bill and his Awabakal family. This ceremony was also attended by the Mayor of Lake Macquarie, Kay Fraser, and the Minister for Port Stephens / Shadow Minister for the Hunter, Kate Washington.
With the Welcome to Country finished it was onto the official seeding runs. All was well with the weather until the final few runs saw a torrential downpour descend upon Monkey, just as Jack Moir was sitting in the start gate ready for his run. Turns out that the rain did not worry Jack as he went on to put down the fastest time in men’s elite, just beating Graham Mudd for the top spot in seeding.
The top spot in the ladies seeding was taken out by Danni Beecroft, just edging out Tegan Molloy. And in a first for HMBA, Adaptive Mountain Biking makes an appearance at the Downhill Nationals at Awaba – Click here to watch Hank!
Sunday morning greeted us once again with showers on and off during the practice runs. Thankfully the weather steadily improved throughout the day, ensuring that the racing was close in all of the categories.
Tegan Molloy was in top form, taking out the Elite Ladies over Danni Beecroft, who unfortunately crashed on her run but was still fast enough for second place. Lisa Mathison, Katie Lawlor and Kellie Weinert completed the podium.
The final category of the day was Elite Men. Well to say the racing was tight is an understatement, as with only 1 rider left to complete their attack on Monkey the top 4 riders were separated by less than 2 seconds!!!
Once again Jack Moir set the fastest time of the day with a smoking run of 3 minutes and 24 seconds, taking out the win from Graeme Mudd by a margin of just over 6 seconds. Jackson Frew, Joel Willis and Josh Clark rounded out the podium.
Full results for all categories can be found at the following link: http://www.vola-racing.com/msportspro/huntermtb/
The Hunter Mountain Bike Association would like to say a warm thank you to our event sponsors – Lake Macquarie City Council, Forestry Corporation NSW, Civmec, Mondraker and Lusty Industries.
We would like to also say a huge thank you to volunteers for the event – without volunteers and sponsors these events do not happen.
Thank you to everyone that attended the event over the weekend – we hope to see you all on track soon.
