Jack places second in Mixed 3's @ Ballarat 6 hour

Direct from the hotbed of talent that is Felt Racing, comes Jack's take on the Ballarat 6 hour, held yesterday in ideal conditions at Nerrina. Read on and enjoy.

-ash-

"Another hot race out of the way, summer is defiantly on it's way! What a track, it had everything, transition in a primary school playground, almost as much climbing as the gravity 12 hour course but on a much shorter track, a small creek crossing with just enough water to get bikes dirty, a 100m long tunnel under the freeway which was dark enough to need a head light, a pedestrian bridge over the freeway, jumps over abandoned mine shafts and some dry, dusty, but incredibly fun single track thrown in for good measure which the Hutchinson Piranha tires where perfect for.

Racing in a mixed 3 with Matt and Jill was going to be a nice change, and I was hoping to have a slightly more relaxed race. That wasn't to be, as I found out on the first lap. The race start was on the bike, and with the solo riders starting in front of everyone it was going to be a battle to get though quite a large group of riders. I managed to pick a great line through the pack up a very rutted and washed out fire road climb and found myself out in front by the first crazy fire road desent (someone with a DH bike had a hand in setting out this course). So with the track to myself, I thought I would try to keep it that way. I was caught and dropped all in the same move half way though the lap by Phil Or (sp?) who went on to put in some very fast laps. I managed to finish the first lap in second place, ahead of our friends the pink and blue boys. I handed over to Jill and Matt while I tried to recover from getting a little bit too excited on the first lap in the heat. The three of us went round and round for the next six hours swapping places with one of the Spoke(n) teams.

In the dying minutes of the race I was ready to go out to finish it off and have a go at chasing down 2nd place, Matt came in with less than 1:30 to go and then I was off again. With the 2nd (or what we thought) placed rider staying just out of reach we thought we had done well to finish in 3rd. That was until we were talking to the 2 teams which we thought had finished in front of us, none of us could agree who had finished where, they thought we had won, we thought the same of them. So we just had to wait for presentations, in the end we made it into 2nd in the mixed three's category. So thanks to Matt and Jill for the company, great riding and the photos.

Bring on the Kona 24."