Trail Report: June 22nd 2003

Rob comes through with the goods and organises traffic spotters; posted out of the pit, just past the esses and at the starting gate. JAW meantime has switched to using his fangled new mobile phone as a timing device - each time a player passes press the split button and all the splits are shown on the screen. Schweet! The upshot of this is 1/100th of a second timing which should sort out a few of those "discussions" from players with equal-to-the-nearest-second times on the board.

Baptism of fire for some new CQ players: Bucky on his CR250, Adrian on the big XR650 thumper and Sam on the CR125.

With Time Trialing sorted a call is made for Moose Mountain. There was still a few guys who had not completed the hill climb, and what better time to make a go of it. With the amount of traffic it serves, there is now a path up the middle - making things a bit easier - but the mountain still claims the odd victim here and there.

"Those last few meters scared the s..t out of me" Colin exclaimed upon reaching the top. Gets a tick in the completed box though :) A few players are yet to get their Moose Mountain badge, next time huh...

Peter is keen to take a new path inland, where the tracks are more open and straigher and you can really wind the clock out. He's not keen to lead however, so Nathan takes the reigns.

With Nath still on fire from the Time Trials, his pace is much faster the pack could handle. There is a bit of stopping and starting with head count tallies ("who are we missing?"). Suprisingly though there are no breakages and no real holdups which is a credit to all the riders and those making sure everyone is present and accounted for. Thirteen riders of varying experience and machinery is not normally an easy task to keep together.

Well there is the occasional and perhaps inevitable stack. Nature of the game huh? While blasting down one of the inland fence line tracks, the ground has turned from hard, to soft in spots, to soft and boggy all the way. At speed you have to keep your wits about you - focused, up on the pegs, good selection of gear so you have some "get out of danger" power ready on command.

Report has it that Adrian had come unstuck hooning mighty close to the barbed wire fence. Down hard enough to earn him Stack of The Day, but no serious damage or injury.

At this stage the sky start to open up, somewhere between drizzle and rain. Most players will tell you that rain is great except for the part where your goggles fog up and have droplets of water on them making it quite hard to see. Rumour has it that defogging spray on the inside and Mr Sheen on the outside will improve things but short of little windscreen wipers you have to start relying somewhat on using the force.

With some guys low on fuel its a run back to Pip road to top up. Some players head off home, a few hang around for the obligary tanks run. "C'mon fellas, hop to it, I'm gettin' cold!"

If you keep riding, you'll stay warm. Colin, Peter and Sam take off to the tanks as team 1. 10 minutes later, team 2 refuelled also head off. Colder than team 1. A whistle stop tanks run is performed and the teams nicely time a reunion halfway back. For some the day is getting long and the energy reserves are being sapped from the body. Sam takes a dive, putting a dent in his nice shiny pipe. "She'll be right, call it a battle scar."

Back at base Chef Andy (Aristos eart your heart out) puts on the snags for hotdogs. In the rain no less. There is no keeping him down. Most other players pike leaving just a few to enjoy some hot lunch. Well done Andy.