After taking my time I’ve finally pulled finger and pushed out this blog of this years Energizer Night Race. After having missed the past 3 years of this fantastic event, I decided that myself and Kendall had to make it to this one before she left for the States. We zooted up to Johannesburg along with the Travis Walker and Paddy Belton fromTeam Jeep South Africa.
Upon arrival, I noticed that the scale of the Night Race had been lifted considerably from the previous year. Lazer shoes, music performers, fire breathers, drum corpse, you name it, it was there. Eventually we were able to pull ourselves away from the mesmerizing entertainment to get in a quick spin on the first 8km of the 20km loop. The race would consist of two laps of the simple, but fun 20km course, meaning one lap for each of the partners. Racing the mixed category, we decided it would be best to send me off first in order to give Kendall the best opportunity at holding off any other teams, leaving her with a relatively clear route.
As soon as the light seeped away into the horizon, the race begun. After a good start, I managed to get a jump on two of the favourite teams for the overall victory. James Reid and Phil Buys had teamed up against Trav Walker and Patrick Belton, two ferociously fast teams. Things looked good until my gears jumped which resulted in me nutting myself on the stem and almost wiping out the thousands of other riders that were in tow. I managed to recover fairly quickly and regained a good position in the lead group of 3. I sat comfortably behind Patrick and James before follow and countering an attack by Patrick, not reading the situation properly, I opted to sit up and let things come back together… This proved to be a very stupid mistake on my part. Less than 100m down the road, my lights came loose. I tried to follow the wheels of the other two, but it proved to be too difficult. I stopped to tighten the two lights, losing precious time and almost dropping a position to Fritz Pienaar. Once the lights were tight and in place, I put the hammer down and as Patrick would say, “went full retard.” I took a couple really risky decisions, but soon found myself a second or two behind the lead group after one of the single track sections. Then disaster struck for Paddy. He bit the dust, letting James pull a sizeable gap into the next section.I managed to squeeze by Pat and start to chase down James who had now opened up a gap to about 30-35seconds. Single track started to get interesting with Patrick behind me, his light over powered mine, creating a shadow of my figure right in the line of where I needed to see in order to ride the single track. After a while we managed to figure out a reasonably good method and began to claw our way back to James. We came into the finish area with James a mere 10seconds ahead of us. This sent Kendall out in 2nd/3rd overall with Travis Walker.
Then came the long wait to see whether Kendall, a first time night rider, could hold off the competition. Well, she did, and in grand style too. Not only did she hold onto our mixed category lead, but she held onto our 3rd Overall position, only a few minutes behind Travis and Philip Buys.
A massive thanks to all involved for such a fantastic event! Max Cluer always has his events dialled and this one was no different.
Now come some heavy prep for the 2013 season. I have some awesome news in the pipeline which will be announced in the next few days or so.
Until then,
B
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