Ahh Thredbo.  It takes me back, back to the start of it all. Back to the nineties, back to a time where hardtails with 3 inch travel forks and 3 chain rings were still accepted downhill machines, when Ronning, Sharples and Miller were the stars, when downhill was in its prime and crowds swarmed the hill like flies and there used to be a 3rd gravity discipline – the quad eliminator – four riders, fireroad top to bottom, fastest 2 go through to the next round. But ... I digress, it’s now a new century and those times remain but a memory in the heads of only a few riders on the hill. And to be honest the lacklustre turnout in both elite and U19 men (I heard the word boycott bandied around a bit – hats for prizes anyone?) detracting from great weather and of course one of the longest, harshest and most demanding courses around.

We couldn't have asked for better weather than this

Round one, Thredbo 2006 state series. A chance to head down to my closest chairlift and punch a few runs without the mad crowds of the National Championships doing crazy things to practice times and ripping the track apart. Also it was the beginning of what I told myself would be a state series in which I completed all races in the series. Checking the weather on Wed night I was pleased to see that it was going to be a cool sunny 4 days of alpine air (and dust) that would leave my lungs screaming for more oxygen (and less dust) and some rather dusty snot coming out of my nose by the end of it all.

Thinking that the track was the same as last time I spent the Friday practicing on the MtnX track but I was soon to find out that there were some slight changes to the track and decided to borrow a lift pass off a mate and head up and take a look. Basically the RawNRG guys cut out the two long straights after magnetic rock and turned the course straight down the hill under the chairlift in a series of turns on the grass which got both good and bad comments from people but in my opinion were a welcome relief as the old straights that the new corners replaced were so worn that it pretty much left no place to rest weary forearms on the whole course. The new corners however were fairly flat and being new, totally devoid of ruts. This gave the old upper body a good 20 seconds rest before entering the blown out corners in the bottom section. On the whole though, the track was in much better condition than at the Nationals, due mainly to the number of riders being approximately one third (boycott anyone?).

Most people have been to Thredbo and you guys can skip this bit if you want, but for those who haven’t, here’s a brief run down of the track. Starting under the chairlift at the top of the quad chair you are immediately up to 70km/h down the fire road getting sideways over water bars and then braking madly for a 160 degree corner at the end which needs to be taken at about 25km/h so you don’t fall off the end (like the boy on the Milo cereal box did at the Nationals) then you leave the fire road for good and hit the single track. The first part is fairly flat with two long flat jumps (roll throughs for the ones who don’t like leaving the ground) through tight snow gums and mountain granite rocks. A couple of slow’ish twisting corners later and you cross the fire trail again and go down a steep rocky left hander to enter the section known as snakes and ladders (due to the tight corners and ladder like wooden structure used to prevent erosion). It was on this tight left that Newcastle GT rider Adam Smithson over cooked it in Friday’s practice resulting in a chipped proximal radius and a weekend spent breathing in the dust in the pit area – get well soon mate.

A group of riders battle the sketchy fireroad

The next section is rougher with faster more open corners but still in the same vein and leads into the middle section of the track, one of my favourite parts. You basically come out of all the rough stuff onto a left hand traverse leading across the hill over a box jump and into the woods. No need for brakes on the traverse though just long slow corners tucked at high speed with a bit of peddling if you feel like it. Then before you know it the woods jump up at you and it’s hard on the brakes before entering the forbidden forest otherwise know as the bunnywalk. Bunnywalk consists of just slower 180 degree corners through the dense snow gum forest until you get spat out onto the lower part of the course. So off we go again up to speed past magnetic rock (DON’T LOOK AT IT YOU FOOL, IT’S MAGNETIC!!!) and into the new section (finally some respite for the aching upper limbs) and then you just follow the track as it winds it’s way down through a series of fast and slow (rutted as hell in some places) single track corners until you pop out on the meadow above the finish straight, hit a bit wall ride (only if you feel like it) and pedal into the finish.

Saturday was pretty quiet with everyone punching out a few runs before most headed over to Friday flat for the Mountain Cross. There was a bit of a lack of atmosphere in the pits but that didn’t stop producer Andrew Keipert and his dedicated team from Split Pin Productions running around and doing a stellar job of getting inside the (sometimes simple) minds of some of the States better dawn healers.

Race day arrived and the weather was looking good as always (unlike Dave Andrews who had had a pretty rough night on the piss – see Clict Videozine #2). So good, in fact, that it was necessary to keep skin covered because even a couple of uplifts could result in some funny body armour tan lines especially about the knees.

The media crew setting up for a 'Tech Talk' section

After a few runs of practice, 1 o’clock came around and it was time for racing. The next half hour though was one of complete confusion due to announcements made over the PA by none other than Colin Battersby. You see, the racing was running about 25 minutes late which wasn’t really a problem except for the fact that Colin kept saying ‘we’re running half an hour ahead of time, so ignore the start lists and just listen to the announcements’ Now I don’t know about you guys but by my understanding of the English language, ‘running half an hour ahead’ is the opposite to ‘running half an hour behind’ ie half an hour late. Apparently in Colin’s lexicon however, this ‘half an hour ahead’ means that we are running half an hour behind or maybe he actually means that time is running half an hour ahead of us. Evidence of how confusing this proved to be was displayed by Smito who, being kept alert and awake from the pain in his elbow, deduced the following: ‘well, half an hour ahead obviously means we are running half an hour early which is weird for a downhill race’ until I pointed out to him that it was already 1.30pm and we still hadn’t seen the first rider come through. Who knows? Anyway, the point is that we were half an hour behind and really confused. To add to the irony, however, somehow by the end of sport men everything was running half an hour ahead of time which resulted in one sport competitor, who had checked his start time and gone back to the lodge to rest, actually missed his start time even though he was waiting up at the top of the chairlift with 15 minutes to go before his ‘scheduled run’ – to RawNRG’s credit though, the did let him do a run after everyone else was finished and he sandbagged his way to first in sport class.

A lacklustre turnout in the elite men resulted in only 20 competitors vying for 10 spots in the final. Brad Kelly was fasted qualifier by 4 seconds with various usual culprits filling up the next 9 spots. The thing about the Thredbo track is that it’s so long that you can make up a fair bit of time if you push it all the way down but conversely, an off in a high speed section can cost you a lot of time because some sections would be quite slow if you weren’t carrying a heap of speed from the previous section. All in all while it looked like Kelly was in a strong position to take the win, anything could happen and it was time for the elite and under 19s to recoup while the other classes took on the hill.

Last years Expert Mens State Champion Damien Reeve hitting the wall ride

In the under 19 category, triple under17’s champ Tom ‘emo’ Patton was looking quick slotting into 3rd in qualifying behind Hamish Armstrong and Luke Gowen. Interestingly, Luke’s qualifying time would have netted him 4th in the elite final – with all of the current Aussie junior team moving up to seniors this year, it’s good to see that there are still pinners coming through to carry on the golden Aussie junior tradition started by Rennie all those years ago.

Running through the rest of the classes.

Elite women saw Joanne Fox sticking it to the other girls in 7.50.29 with Sam Thompson just sneaking past Carla McLeish by 0.43 of a second to bag second place with a 8.16.43.

Junior women was won by Kelly Hughes in a time of 9.16.92 ahead of Thredbo local Siobhan Jones.

Sport women’s lone competitor Bindi Hatcher came through in 9.30.52 to nab herself a nice RawNRG hat just like all other categories. No discrimination in prizes in this race (except for elite men – they’d run out of hats by this stage).

Current U17's National Champion Tom Patton complete with berm railage

Expert was taken out by Mark Navin in 6.28.06 which would have put him second in elite men’s qualifying and 4th in the final. Joel Davis and Drew Ivison rounded out the top three but were over 15 seconds slower than the winner. Based on these performances I guess we’ll be seeing these guys move up into the elite category sometime soon.

Now, on to the junior classes - First up u17s. Winner Dylan Prohm smoked it with a 6.33.02 closely followed by Sam Ward and Shaun O’Conner. All these boys would’ve finished in the top 10 elites which just blows me away. Despite the age difference these grommets are already on par with the state u19s and elites – at least Sharples’ll have a guaranteed job for the next few years putting up with these blisteringly fast pains in the arse at World Championships the world over.

Under 15’s was taken out by Daniel Lavis in 7.14.36

Daniel Taliana took out masters 1/2 in 6.51.25  followed by Chris Mather in 6.55.50 and Daniel Segeri in 7.18.67

Masters 3/4 took it a bit easier with Scott Morelli smashing second place Pat Pavlich by 18 seconds with a 7.26.35 and Geoff Lovie slotting in to third place with a casual 7.53.23

Farkin's Squid showing us you don't need to be fast to look good

Masters 5/6 was a two horse race with Steve Coles coming in over a minute ahead of Steven Humphreys in 8.18.90

Sport men saw first time racer Leif Arenbarh smash the other punters apart with a 7.13.31  - another one to move up a class next time.
Also on the podium were Brendon Cronk and Benjamin Thomas.

Last but not least there were a few hardtailers who smashed their way through the ruts and rocks to the bottom of the hill, the fastest of which was Tim Bransgrove in 8.50.53.

A very happy U19's podium showing off their shiny new hats

With all these classes out of the way and enjoying the sunshine it was time for the fast boys to come down the hill for their second run. In the under 19’s, third qualifier Tom Patton came down 5 seconds faster that his qualifier to displace Chris Perger from the hot seat but with his final time still 7 seconds slower than top qualifier Luke Gowen’s it was looking doubtful as to weather he would hold onto the lead. Second qualifier Hamish Armstrong didn’t have it in him and then the crowd has their hearts in their mouths as Gowans qualifiying time ticked past and yet he still hadn’t emerged from the final tree section. Where was he? A second later he came bursting out of the trees and hammered across the line 7 seconds slower than his qualifier but still 0.3 seconds ahead of Patton to take the win.

A very gob smacked Elite podium who missed out on the hats

The elites came through one by one with everyone except for Dan Chermak taking at least a few seconds off their qualifier. The first person to break Kelly’s qualifying time was Tim Eaton with a 6.24.98. Would it be enough? Still in the hotseat when Kelly was on track it was left to be seen had he done enough? The answer was no and Kelly had pinned it to first knocking 5 seconds off his qualifier in the process.

So there it was. Split Pin Productions did their chase up checking on all the racers who they had interviewed the previous day, Dave Andrews was still feeling a little worse for wear, cars were packed and most people cleared out pretty quickly leaving a trail of hats all the way to Jindabyne and Sunday night in the bistro pretty quiet. The message from the riders was pretty clear…

*Pics courtesy of Dave Patton, and Ricky Lee