Kyle Davids: S.A national Cup #3 - Pietermaritzburg

After a proud result at the last provincial, it was now time for the third national to be held in Pietermaritzburg on the world cup track. The course was hard pack, rolling EXTREMELY fast and it was a real bundle of fun! After a long awaited time off of the national scene, almost a month, I was excited to do some racing.

Corkscrew Gap

After getting sick just after my previous race, training posed a problem. I still wasn't hundred percent better but I needed to do well in order to try get selected for world champs. Practice arrived on Friday and I got straight into it. The track was feeling awesome and I was super stoked to be riding my Morewood Kalula, it was the perfect bike for the job and it was handling really nicely. The track Started just below cloud nine and just before the big rock and pebble beach. I couldn't wait for race day! Saturdays practice was awesome. Mother Nature finally decided to make up her mind and keep the weather nice and hot.

Berm after A-frame Road Gap

Race day had arrived and I was super keen to race, first up we had the seeding runs. My seeding run wasn't bad at all but I wasn't happy with it, I had no energy to pedal the long flat section and to keep a constant pace through the flat section. I was seeded as third junior and was eager to see if I could keep the same pace in my race run.

Hip Jump into a rock garden

After I had refueled, relaxed a little bit and done a warm up I was in the start gate and ready for my race run. The run started off really well, I was keeping a good pace and hadn't made any mistakes. I then reached a section called driftage, the name gives it all away and you can guess what happened after that. I drifted off course and lost all speed that I needed to get up a short little hill. Through the flat section I just didn't have the legs on the day and i was struggling to keep my speed constant. At the end of the day I was still third junior, and happy with what I had achieved.