Just arrived back from the trip yesterday. Man what a trip and better than I had hoped. Just such a blast riding and racing the Farleigh track and getting to know the Aussie team and supporters and all the extremely generous and helpful Poms. Great report Brad and your results reflect what I witnessed as a beautifully executed race weekend despite some set backs. Well done mate, I was proud to race in the same team as you. All riders in the Team gave it their all and each of us have our own dramas and highlights. The highlight rides were James Deakin, Craig Ando, Kirk Hutton, Geoff Ballard and of course BvB. I'd like to make a special mention of John Kittle. What a stand up guy he showed himself to be. He went to Farleigh as a team member and BvB was our reserve. While John says he wasn't riding at his best due to recovering from a broken collarbone, he was still riding very well and had every right to keep his place in the team. It was a class act how he put his team and his friendship first and offered to give up his place for Brad. JK has to be admired for such a selfless decision.
I second Brad's comments on how rough the track was. I've done a lot of Motocross racing on many different tracks and have never seen anything like it. I always shake my head when riders complain about rough tracks in Australia because as far as I am concerned rough tracks are an integral part of the challenge of real Motocross and we just need to ride to the conditions. That's why long travel suspension has developed on our bikes. This trip to Farleigh reinforced my viewpoint as there are very few more legitimate authentic natural terrain motocross tracks around the world than Farleigh Castle. With an average 2.40 to 3 minute lap of Farleigh throwing all sorts of challenges at you. Long sloppy and shaded ruts that changed every lap. Deep sharp edged potholes full of slippery rocks, long extremely bumpy uphills and downhills and of course the famous steps. I have to admit though, I was not at all prepared for how rough it actually was and as it got rougher my bike felt more and more badly prepared for the conditions. It was a little damp early Saturday but the day was sunny and it dried through the day getting faster and rougher and rougher. By the last of my 4 Saturday motos it was just crazy trying to accelerate up and down the hills. Think of the absolute roughest acceleration bumps you have experienced coming out of a corner, the line you do everything to avoid, then imagine it like that all across the track all the way up and down the hills. Then on Sunday, you turn up to the track to find out overnight it had received over an hours solid rain! I can tell you when I found that out, I thought to myself, holy crap this is simply going to be a battle to survive each lap, and I was right. All those sharp edged bumps were now sloppy with virtually no traction. It was carnage, with bikes strewn all over the track. As difficult as it was as part of such a great Aussie team it was an amazing experience to race the track all those World Champs and GP stars of the past had raced.
Anyway Rosco Holden did it! He organised, coordinated and managed the whole effort and it was exactly what I thought it would be, a VMX Trip of a lifetime. Fantastic memories I'll take to my grave.
