The last time I raced Fort Schanskop was in mid 2000's so was really excited to visit the course again as I made the final that long time ago. Flying into Joburg the Friday morning, first stop was Jozi-X, a park run by my sponsor at X-Ware, www.x-ware.co.za , Marco Caromba. Had a look at what was new and what this kid in a candy store could get to go try out. Especially with the DTC WHEELS, http://site-us.dtc-wheels.com/en/ , and Navigator Trucks,http://navigatortrucks.com/ .
Met up with Robin Moodley and then off to STEEPWAYS, probably the funnest slide hill I have ever skated. It's a little pocket rocket of a gem, and thanks so much to NationalGraphix, https://www.facebook.com/NationalGraphix , for the awesome images from that session.
First day of practice and time trials saw me struggle a bit with my line and equipment. Ended up crashing in my time trial and most of practices and qualified in the 40's out of 65 riders. So needless to say the pressure was on for racing on the Sunday.
Sunday morning and I was on the first shuttle up the hill for practice and had decided to zone into my riding for the day by riding with my earphones in for the whole day, allowing the hip-hop to calm me down and just have fun and flow through the course. With it all to do, racing started well and i worked my way through the first and middle rounds of the 6-man heats, getting firsts in all of them, beating some of the country's top downhill skaters along the way. I definitely felt as though I was back.
The further into the heats, the tighter the competition, so in the semis I found myself in second place going into the final corner, and an unfortunate fall by the rider ahead of me by a metre or two resulted in my bail, and therefore me being relegated to the consolation final rather than the final. I ended up coming 5th in the 6 man consolation final, and an 11th finish overall.
It was an awesome weekend of racing that has marked my return to racing and all I can do now is build upon the form I showed.
A big thank you to Marco Caromba at X-Ware for the equipment, especially the DTC Wheels and Navigator Trucks, 2BOP Clothing for all the fesh threads, and all those who made an awesome weekend possible, and Toni Stuart for the support and being a rad travel partner!
