This past weekend was the Energizer Night Relay held at Hilton College. This is definitely one of the highlights on the calender, as it brings a totally different dimension of racing to the scene.
The weather was really off the whole day on Friday, and really turned nasty in the afternoon right before the racing took place. The mist and the rain didn't let up, we all knew that racing was really going to be interesting in the conditions.I ended up teaming up with team mate Craig Paul, hoping to try and bring home a good result for Energizer, which is one of our sponsors.
With and hour or so to the start Craig rigged up my Dassie Blinder (A down Lighter) to my helmet, man was that thing bright. After our quick demonstrations of the Start and finish we were all ready to race. I was the first rider up for our team. I sat on the start line feeling fairly chilled. With 10 sec or so to the start I switched on the light and was ready to go. As we headed out the school I was back in 3rd or 4th position, but managed to hit the front before the end of the tar road. Unfortunately I made a small mistake and came down pretty hard while going through a fence. I managed to get myself up quickly and pushed to reopen the small gap I had opened.
Upon entering the first single track I had a good gap and rode as fast as possible in every technical section I could in order to open up the gap over the next rider. At around the half way mark I sat up and rode at any easy pace and just kept my gap over the next rider until I reached the transition area where I handed over the timing chip to Craig.
While he was out on his loop I did my best to stay warm, and before I knew it he was in and we were back out on the course. We eased into the 3rd and final lap and slowly upped the pace. We pushed hard in the single track once again to open up the gap on the other teams. Unfortunately the battery for my light started to die, this left me riding with minimal light so the pace dropped dramatically. However, the lead we had built up was enough to see us through to the finish.
It was super awesome to win a race that is sponsored by one of our co-sponsors which is associated with team Jeep! It was one of the few races we were actually able to give back to our sponsors and I definitely look forward to the event next year. Thanks to Energizer for supplying the free lights in the goodie bags and to the marshalls, as well as to jeep for the event t-shirts! Lastly a huge thank you must also go out to my team mate Craig Paul. It was the first time we had teamed up for an event and I certainly look forward to another opportunity in the future.
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