Well its that time of year again and the 2009 SA Road Trial season kicked of yesterday (2nd May) with the Phillip Haydon 6hr run at Marrabel by the Gawler MCC. I was entered in Class M, pre 1990, on my "new" XT500-C, which, thanks to a bit of sponsorship money from Team Kevin Rudd Racing I was able to put some new/modern tyres on, unlike last year where I road the entire season on a set of 30 year old ones.
There were 5 entries in Class M, along with myself, there were Kevin Steinert on his TT500 Yamaha, Kym Menadue on a PE175 Suzuki, Paul Collins on a KDX200 Kawasaki and John Gersch on a KLX250 Kawasaki
The day started out as a perfect day for a ride, with the temp being in the mid 20's *C and a bit of cloud cover, but after the sun set the temp rapidly dropped down and was under 10*C by time I finished at 9:15pm. As it had rained a bit in the week leading up to the event, and during the night before, the paddock sections were close to perfect. We rode 2 laps of the course which was 118km long, with 17 sections, 8 of which were paddock/special sections ranging from 3 to 6km long and totalling 35km for the lap. They were fairly typical, with a lot of the section being twisty going in and out of small gum/mallee trees that are found through out the area. The only problem I had with the route through the trees, was the number of low branches that you had to go under, I am sure the course was marked by a short guy who had been bullied at school by all the tall kids, and was using this as an opportunity to exact his revenge on us tall people, as I lost count of the number of times I headbutted branches.
The pain of riding through the trees was forgotten. while ridding what I think was the 3rd last paddock section of the lap (by the end of an event I am normally so tired I can't remember one section from another). Anyway, after the a deep and shitty mud hole at the start of the section, the course run along a errosion gully / creek for what had to be about 3km. The banks of the gully were nicly rounded as were most of the turns, allowing even a mug riding a dinosaur like me to do some nice jumps up out of the gully and to play "Wall of Death" on the turns/bends when riding along in the gully. I got some strange looks and comments, while talking with the Clerk of Course at the 1/2 way fuel stop when I described the section as "being more fun than sex", and I maintain that it was, well on the first lap. On the second lap, in the dark, I had problems with my lights and ended up getting a bit lost and fumbling my way through and didn't have half as much fun, which means it was just the same as sex!
Results; How did I go! Well the official results won't be released for a few days, but at the end of the fist section I was in equal first place overall, but then it was only a transport section, and everyone would have been tied for 1st place. From there on, I started my normal rapid decsent through the field. Although I think I held my own with the other 4 competitors in Class M during the first lap, I had major problems with my lights right from the start of the second (night) lap, high beam was a dim yellow glow and the spotlight worked when it wanted to for all of about 2 minutes in the whole 3 hr lap, so I rode quite slowly through most of the competetive sections, and I even lost time on a couple of the transport sections as I was riding so slowly. So, I will not be suprise if I didn't end up in last place, but to me, it is all about finishing, and I at least did that. I spoke with Kevin and John at the finish, so I know that they also completed the coures, but I am not sure or how Kym and Paul went.
CJ
