Mont 24hr - Lupine Racing

We did the Mont last year in an open team and went OK so after getting on the podium at the Scott in Masters Dicko and I decided to put a masters entry in. A forced change in sponsor had Dicko searching for a replacement. Lupine Lights stepped up and kitted us out for the event. A huge thanks to Bill and the team at Lupine here in Australia, your support is appreciated.

The team consisted of Wayne Dickinson, Craig Morris, Steve Knight, Dave O’Connell, Matt Russell and myself. Dicko did the first lap and got us off to a good start finishing about 35th. We got through the first rotation and I think we were just in 2nd place a few seconds ahead of third. The first few night laps didn't go well for us with Craked crashing and then Steve01 ripping a tyre sidewall in a big crash and having to run the last few kilometres when his gas canister failed to inflate the replacement tube. We lost about 18 minutes with Steve01's problem and effectively dropped out of contention for the top 2 places.

We did the rest of the night laps without any major dramas and were safely in 3rd place when the sun rose. Overall we did 24 laps and had a pretty trouble free run. Its a rare day when the great Steve01 gets slowest lap but thats the way it turned out so I am looking forward to him shouting the beer next time we go for a ride.

Dicko took fastest day and night laps. While that may sound impressive Dicko is actually the youngest of the team by over 6 years and therefore is closer in age to Andy Blair than most of his team mates. Sadly for Dicko his lap times are much closer to us old slow blokes than they are to Blairy's 47 minute lap. I think next year we will have to change the fastest lap from a scratch to a handicap system to even things up a bit and make him work a bit harder for his money.

Our race details can be found at http://www.racetecresults.com/MyResults.aspx?CId...

We finished 19th overall so pretty happy with that. Ant Shippard had predicted we would trouble the top 10 overall and I think it would have taken a near perfect race for us to do that. The winners of our division did finish 8th so as usual Ant was very accurate with one of his prediction.

The crew at self propelled put on another relaxed and fun event. The course was its usual mix of fast pine and twisty native forest and laps seemed to pass pretty quickly with the majority of climbing in the second half of the course. The vibe out on track was pretty good and I only had one incident where a rider refused to cooperate when asked by the guy behind me to let us past. His response that it was up to us to find a way past seemed like an invitation to me however the the girl in front of me wasn't as forceful as I would have been. Overall a great event with lots of happy people out on course enjoying the trails.

We stayed for the presentation and won a big box of sponsors gear. Had to laugh as the boys checked out the schwalbe ust tyres to confirm they were all 26in. As the only traditionalist in the team I offered to take all six however despite racing 29ers there still appears to be a few 26in bike in the cupboard somewhere as most of the tyres disappeared.