Kyle Davids: Greg Minnaar & Mongoose KZN provincial #3

This past weekend saw the running of the third Greg Minnaar/Mongoose KZN Provincial in Cascades, Pietermaritzburg. The organizers decided to just run the top half of the World Cup track, which would be the steeper and more technical, but less pedally half. I had plenty of practice and was feeling really good about the up coming race. The more I practiced the better I was feeling on my Morewood Kalula. On the last and final day of practice, I made the decision to give the second table top a try, it went better than I expected and things were looking good for race day, all I could do now was pray for no rain and get a good night sleep.

So on Saturday night it ended up raining and it was a rush to change to mud tires. I changed the front tire and when moving on the back one I discovered that the rear axle was stripped... so it was a mud tire on the front for me and there was nothing to do about the rear tire. Myself and my dad headed up to the n3 table tops where the race would be finishing and I got myself ready for the first practice run. I came down the track, still reasonably clean but also pretty dirty. After my first run I only had one thing to say, "the track is prime!". My combination of only having a mud on the front seemed to be working and I felt really good on my Morewood Kalula. I was struggling however to find my rhythm on the gully and the n3 tables, so before my race run I pushed back up and got it as fast as I could and cleared the jumps and was now ready to race.

First Race Run: My first race run started off really well, I took off out of the start gate, cranked up a few gears and kept my momentum throught the top section, I came onto the first road and pedaled into the fast gumtree section followed by a small road gap before a burm that turns into where the old World Cup track started. Cloud nine wasn't too slick but was also not as is usually is and after I managed it through there I road through pebble beach faster than ever, the rest of the track from just after super tube section was all pretty much a blur as it is the fastest part of the upper half of the World Cup track. The only thing I can really gather was being in the air for so long on the second table top that I freaked out and pulled my brakes throwing me off balance, despite that, I raced to the finish line to secure my place as the first junior but there was still one more junior to come down. I sat in the hot seat until I was told to leave for my next run, while going up in Mr Dinklemans bakkie I heard on the radio that Tim Bentley had knocked me off the red bull hot seat and that Tiaan Odendaal had taken the top spot in the juniors men category for now. Six seconds seemed to be so little but in actual fact it is quite the gap to close down. I was however comfortable with my second place.

Second Race Run: The second race run for many was not as good as the first one. One definite problem on the second race run was the mist that was so thick that it was really hard to see where you were going. Everyone put in their best efforts in the second run to try and better their first run. I tried really hard and was determined to try and close down some of the gap between myself and Tiaan, but my efforts weren't good enough and my time showed my second run as being a few seconds slower. I was still really stoked with my result and could not have had been on a better machine for this race, the Morewood was prime for this track and I look forward to the next race at karkloof.

Official Top Ten Results:

1	Greg Minnaar	EM	2.19.78
2	Tim Bentley	EM	2.21.66
3	Travis Browning	EM	2.25.12
4	Hayden Brown	EM	2.25.71
5	Tiaan Odendaal	JM	2.26.53
6	Kelvin Purchase	EM	2.30.67
7	Kyle Davids	JM	2.32.59
8	Simon Dinkelman	EM	2.37.47
9	Anthony Botha	EM	2.40.25
10	Sam Bull	JM	2.41.41