Bathurst on Aeras

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Comment by Laurence Lombardi on April 21, 2010 at 22:46

intense stuff.

Premium Member Comment by haggy on April 10, 2010 at 13:16

Very cool to see the semi's and finals on-track view.
man, full respect for everyone racing that hill! Also terrific to get some insight from the winner on the challenges of the track.

Not to beat a dead horse, but certainly a freeride like BtB will have a very different vibe than the World Champs. The riding is friendly and there is nothing on the line - no world cup points, no cash prizes. When the boys got a bit amped last year and the crashes started piling up, some stern words from Ado and Andy and a reminder that we were all there for fun and nothing else was enough to calm us down.

Considering the number of crashes we had an Newton's I actually think the number of injuries could have been significantly worse. The vast majority of people who crashed slid into the bales, got up, dusted themselves off, and carried on. Going into this year I also think more people are aware of how to ride Mount Panorama and the necessity of respecting it. Safety is first and foremost on the minds of ASRA, you all have no idea how much time we spent looking at hay bale allocation, structure, etc. Hopefully we will be able to provide more practice time this year, as this was extremely limited last year by the number of days we were given the track (3 days) and the IGSA racing structure, which with two qualifying runs means it takes a full day and a half just to get qualifying done.

ASRA Admin Comment by Bugs on April 10, 2010 at 12:43

It's a difficult track; high-speed and technical, and it was hard for even the best riders to pick the right line through the Dipper and Forest. When they got the line wrong they slammed hard into the bales. In both semi-finals the leaders crashed out at Forest, and in the final the 3rd and 4th place guys both crashed at Forest.

Like Robbo says, the crashes and injuries came from people trying to ride above themselves on an unforgiving track.

I think BtB is different cos it's not a race, so the competitive pressure is not there. Also people will have all the runs they need to figure out the lines and work it all out, unlike Newton's where practice is unfortunately limited.

Comment by Robbo on April 10, 2010 at 12:00

We only cut 2 people under that rule. If we cut people because of crashing we would end up cutting most of the top ranked riders. Unfortunately unlike a freeride guys crash in significant numbers during races, it is very difficult to tell a rider to slow down for a race as for them that often defeats the purpose of racing. There were a lot of injuries but there was also a lot of riders that had not had a gnarly crash before and instead of walking off the track were waiting for an ambulance to carry them off before heading back up the hill and riding again.

All riders were capable of getting down the track at their ability its just that people were trying to ride above themselves including the top ranked guys. On a track like Bathurst you need a lot of casual practice which is hard for us to provide under IGSA formats. What we need is more races and more people putting on races to give aussie riders the gritty experience of racing. In most countries you don't have the steep learning curve of Bathurst but until we get more racing events up thats just the way it is.

It seems unusual to K-rimes that this could be an Australians first race as in Canada young riders have the option of a dozen races but at this stage Bathurst is the only race we have so its obviously going to be the first race most Australians have gone in. Australian riders ability needs to be tested in races to increase their ability to race, not in freerides. Somebody of the talent of Daddow could go 2 years of freeriding without having a crash and then crash 8 times in a race, thats just how it is

Comment by Nick Scott on April 10, 2010 at 9:29

one of my favourite videos

Comment by Dan Pape on April 7, 2010 at 17:23

there you be skaters. Now in HD for Auz to SEE!

Enjoy

Dan Pape

Comment by Henry King on April 7, 2010 at 10:15

by the elbow you're going bloddy fast, if you get sideways your wheels just melt, and there's quite a drop around the corner which un weights making it hard to get your wheels to grip up as well.
gnarly gnarly track, cant wait to do it again!

Premium Member Comment by Gabe on April 7, 2010 at 1:12

All the rubber left on the road by those farkers in their V8's made the tarmac really strange, It was insanely grippy but if you broke traction it was incredibly hard to pull it back in. Was watching this happen to people trying to check into the elbow on the first day...CARNAGE!!!!

Premium Member Comment by Adam on April 7, 2010 at 0:14

Sooooooooooo good

ASRA Admin Comment by Bugs on April 6, 2010 at 22:55

People that slid the elbow seemed to just keep sliding - seemed hard to hook up again. Might have just been the speed they were carrying...
Great footage in here of the semi and final.

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