This year's Australian International Pedal Prix Series once again ended with a fantastic 24hr race, this year celebrating 30 years of the series. I have covered the basics of what this race is all about here:
http://forum.multitool.org/index.php/topic,59323.0.html and I recommend you check out that link first if you haven't.
After an unlucky start to the season, our team began to shine at the round 3 6hr race, and everyone in the team improved massively between then and the 24hr race. Based on round 3, we went into the race hoping for a top 5 position, although on the Friday night qualifying session, we found we would have our work cut out for us.
After fine tuning the car from the qualifying laps, we were satisfied that it was running beautifully, and were rearing to go.
Our fantastic team
After the first few laps we settled into 15th position, but were climbing. 2hrs and 2 riders into the race (2pm), It was finally time for my first stint of the race. I was quite nervous, having sore legs from the previous week's training, and didn't want to let the team down. Once I was on the track however, I was in the zone. Having started racing age 12, my skill had changed beyond recognition, and professional teams no longer passed me at 3 times my speed. In fact, I was surprised that I was able to keep up with one of "trump trikes", which were part of the team that won the race the previous year. There were numerous crashes and tricky situations around me, but my training had paid off, and I was able to glide around the corners and dodge the primary schoolers loosing minimal speed. Even a friend of mine, a bit of a cycling nut, was unable to escape me, and at one point I overtook him down the main straight as he grinned (grimaced?) out his window at me.
By that point I had lost count of my laps, and was beginning to wear down, although I was maintaining fantastic pace. I passed the team pits and got the 50min sign I had asked for, and not only that but they were leaning over the track cheering wildly. That gave me a good boost of speed, and I did another 3 laps, before pulling into the pits for the next rider to take over.
Over the course of the hour I was riding, I averaged about 40km/h, and brought the team up to about 8th. Unfortunately at that point the race had to be temporarily stopped for an hour due to a couple of bad crashes, where the ambulance had to be brought in. Luckily no-one was seriously injured, and the race was once again underway.
By the time night began to fall, we had work up to 7th position in our category, and about 32nd overall out of 225 teams. Anticipating racing again at about 10pm, I didn't try to get any sleep early, leaving me quite tired as well as somewhat exhausted by my next stint, which was pushed back to about 12:30am (woohoo) with another race stopage, due to some medical issue of a spectator (around 30000 people attend the race, teams, supporters, family etc.) That second stint was somewhat slower but still a decent pace, and I was on the track that time for about 50min, and as soon as I got back, I fell asleep almost immediately, despite the noise of the race, generators, and the train that passes at about 3am
.
I woke about 6:30 the next morning, exhausted, but with a decent amount of sleep compared to other years. I recieved the bad news that as I slept, we had buggered the gears once again, and after an hour of fixing, the top couple gears were missing, just like round 1. Luckily for me I was using a rather low gear anyway, so I was able to do alright, but in the time we were off the track, we slipped back a long way, and had worked our way back up to about 15th. Then it was time for my 3rd stint for the race, first thing in the morning, on an empty stomach. Once again, my times had dropped back somewhat, but so had most of the other teams, infact, after a few laps of me and a pro team overtaking each other, they were tailing ME. That was pretty surprising, but eventually they left me in their dust, and I pulled into pits to get me some bacon.
We managed to climb to 13th, and the race was then stopped again, once again another medical condition of a spectator. The race resumed with only an hour to go, and we held our position for those last few laps. The end of the race came, and we finished with 13th in our category, and 58th overall, out of 225. The competition was fierce this year, although next year our team will be training much harder, and hopefully it will show.
Traditional water fight at the end of the race:
Our trike somewhat battered, but still in one piece:
Once again, the fantastic team (p.s. thanks zoidberg for the hat):
Here is a great vid put together by one of the riders of the pro team "trisled", I think it really well captures what it is like to be at the race:
And here is a neat shot of a minor crash at the infamous corner, you'll see me go past being tailed by a pro team at the end
:
I will put any good new videos that turn up on this thread, so check back in a week or two. Also, if you are interested in this sport, make sure you sub to the original thread that I linked at the top, I'll post there when the next season begins.
Thanks for your time guys, hope you enjoyed I just love to share the fun of this awesome event with whoever will listen
p.s. could a mod please put a link to this thread in the op of the other thread I linked at the top here. thanks
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