CTS#1_08

Yesterday was the day for the first of four Chase the Sun Enduro races run by FGP at Lysterfield park, site of the 2006 commonwealth games MTB course. The idea of the series is to have the length of the races dependant on the setting of sun, therefore each race will have a different length and also utilise different trails to construct the course. Sundays race was the shortest of the four at 5 hours, the last with be a much longer 8 hours long.

In the red corner this weekend there was 3 teams operating out of the Felt tents, first off there was myself (Jack) paired up with Scott, ex aussie champions Josh Flemming and Rob Eva (on loan) and Jo Wall paired with Jaci Lo doing it for the girls. With over cast skies above it was looking to be a chilly day for those sitting around waiting to head out on a lap, it was however a good weather for riding and the recent rain meant that dust was non existent all day, a nice change.

As usual for these style of races the race start was down the bottom of a hill to help spread the field before the first section of single track. The first lap was quite eventful, around half way around a small group with myself, Josh and John Claxton from Giant had a good sized gap on the rest of the field. None of us had done a practice lap which turned out to be our mistake as we came to a cross roads with an arrow that appeared to be pointing to the right. This sent the three of us up a very long fire road climb to the top of the commonwealth games course, for those that know Lysterfield, this is a fairly decent climb. Once at the top we realised out our mistake and headed back to where we thought the course was. In the end we lost only a couple of minutes to the leaders of the first lap.

It was up to Scott and Rob to make up for our navigational errors and chase down the race leaders. Luckily the lead was regained in a couple of laps. The focus then turned to the race for the cash. With Giant hot on our heals and team #2 close behind the race was on for young and old, literally.

Josh doing it for team #2.

Felt Racings guest star for the day, Rob Eva.

With a few more laps down Giant had opened up a small lead with Felt team #1 in 2nd and team #2 not far behind in 3rd. The time gaps between the 3 teams was changing from lap to lap, with reports of riders seeing each other out on course at different points there wasn't time for any body to slack off or take it easy.

Unfortunately the Full Gas Guys were having some computer issues during the day which meant that results were hard to come by. It also meant that there was no presentations after the race. However by our reckoning Felt Racing #1 came in a couple of minutes down on Giant for a 2nd place with team #2 not far behind in 3rd. In the girls race the Felt Chicks pulled off a 3rd place. Official results to come once they have been extracted from the troublesome computers, stay tuned.

For more on how the Felt Chicks went check out Jo's blog.

Thanks to Gerald for playing paparazzi for the day, it would be much less interesting around here with out.