So the day had arrived, the day we had been waiting and working towards for the past 12th months, our moment of truth.
We made our way down to Sturt Reserve just in time for the Top 15 shootout. Having posted the fastest lap during Friday night qualifying, joining us in the shootout was fellow Victorians (and 2008 AIPP Champs) Tru Blu Racing, Trisled Fresh Racing and fellow Bendigo team mates Bendigo South East Secondary College
During the shootout, each team is given one flying lap ‘traffic-free’ to see how fast they can go. The times then determine the top 15 grid positions.
Nige to Daryl: “Was that fun?”
Daryl: “Not really. I was on two wheels a lot and it’s hard to corner with no one else around you. It’s harder to tell how fast you’re going.”
Let’s go Racing!
So with the shootout out of the way all our attention switched to the 12 noon start of the race. Our dedicated pit crew went over every aspect of the vehicle for a final time before making our way over to the start line.
“The nerves were building as we wondered whether all the hard work we had put into our vehicle and our fitness was going to be enough to hold off the rest of the pack.” – Chooka
First up – Cal Ridge
First up for BYR was our specialist starter Callan Ridge who followed the Clipsal 500 Pace Car around for the parade lap. During the parade lap you can see just how extraordinary this event is – there are simply so many vehicles on track that it seems impossible that you’ll be able to make your way through.
After completing the first lap, it was Tru Blu and BYR who had opened a quite substantial gap on the rest of the field after both putting in super fast laps of 2:23. This lap - with Tru Blu gun racer Steele Von Hoff crossing the line first – was the fastest of the whole race.
With 45 mins of racing done Cal pitted and Steele in Tru Blu carried on until the hour mark. We were behind, but not by much.
Next to jump in BY-09 was Dave Maud who put in a blistering stint of 2:38 to 2:42 minute laps and reclaimed the ground and pushed us out to an early 1 lap buffer over Tru Blu.
Next to hop in was our youngest rider Troy Hutchins who at just 16 years of age was in his first race for BYR.
Troy put in an impressive 55 minutes of consistent laps and it was becoming clear that we had the speed to consolidate our early lead.
Blueshift’s new vehicle looked very impressive and whilst they obviously need a bit more development time, we expect that they’ll improve in 2010.
As the afternoon progressed so did the lead that we were putting into Tru Blu with the lead ebbing and flowing from 1 lap to 3 laps depending on the rider in each vehicle.
Nige got stuck in next for an hour an ten minutes in his first stint for BYR since 2006:
"Rowan told me I was born ready for this and I got a lot of confidence from the great team vibe we had. I don’t think I’m the best steerer in the world, but I knew that once I was out there it would all come flooding back. You never know whether you are fit enough until you are out there yourself. That’s the real moment of truth.”
Next up, Mark Anson (Charles):
Despite his height, Chaz powered out over an hour as we continued to consolidate our lead.
"I'm happy with how I rode, although displeased with the amount of traffic and how bad traffic overrides your fitness for good lap times. I really think they (the AIPP) should cap entries at 200 vehicles. The higher number of teams on the track, the lower quality of racing." - Mark Anson
Sixth in the line-up, Deven, put down some great times in a stint of an hour and a half:
"I was pretty happy with my form - I had a lot more in the legs in my second stint than I have in previous years." - Deven
Seventh, our team President, Chooka, had a challenging weekend:
"I wasn't all that happy with my first stint because it was very interrupted with yellow flags before the windscreen fogged. By contrast, "My second stint was very enjoyable riding as the sun came up."
Daryl and Cal also rode with poor visibility, but were only dropping 5 – 10 seconds per lap to the opposition. The strategy at this stage changed to keeping the trike on three wheels and to keep circulating at 2:50 – 2:55.
As Daryl finished off the rider order after 8pm, we’d been through our rider order once. With longer stints by everyone overnight we ended up going through the order exactly two and a half times. The first time we have ever strategically manage our rider times so well.
"The best part of the race for me was when we cut the 'Dan Kelly' holes in the side of the front windscreen and side-windows over night. We could then see where we were going and things got a lot easier."
One of the most unexpected arrivals was from Deven’s folks – “My parents rocked up at midnight to see me race! Talk about support!”
Race stopped under RED
At around this time, the race was red flag and all vehicles were required to return to the pits. With the official word being that ‘Timing Issues’ were the cause of the delay, we were actually happy that they had stopped the race. Why?
- It gave us the chance to check and retune our vehicle,
- We weren’t likely to experience a repeat of the timing confusion that plagued the 2006 event, and
- It gave Tim White and the kids at Bendigo South East a chance to do some late night chalking.
With the race restarted and visibility good, we continued on our merry way through an uneventful night.
Morning:
By morning, we seemed to have avoided any reliability gremlins and the vehicle was looking decidedly better than in 2008:
“Seeing the bike go round and not have to return to pits every 10 minutes was a definite highlight. It was also great to see a few of ideas be validated.” – Gavin (Pit Crew)
“Getting the bus bogged on the way was definitely the funniest part of our weekend, although my personal highlight was realising how fast the bike still was on Sunday morning.” – Cal Ridge
Indeed, Cal was absolutely flying in his final morning stint – from 8am – 9am. His times were virtually all under 2:40 apart from a 3:15 which included a crash: “I am happy with how I rode - apart from hitting so many things !”
(Btw - Cal was the only one to roll the vehicle during the race – once in his second stint and once in his third)
With our vehicle in good nick and TruBlu started to fade, it was Trisled that started to get our attention.
Trisled – who managed to confuse everyone by bringing two identical vehicles (apart from the number panels, everything was the same!) – we never too far away in third at this early stage in the race, but seemed to have to push extremely hard to hit race pace. We saw the boys have a few excursions onto the grass and on their side on BYR Hill.
But you have to race for the full 24 hours and Trisled eventually showed they had more rider depth in their team than Tru Blu and took second place in the final hours of the race.
Meanwhile, Dave put in a barnstorming hour ride on Sunday morning – he was improving and getting faster as the race went on.
A nervous Troy completed the challenging period from 10 – 11am with gusto: “I would have to say that the training paid off. With my third (and final) stint I was a little unsure as I hadn't had anything to eat. After the year of building and training since BY-08 fell apart last year, winning was bitter-sweet.” – Troy.
The run to the line...
With an hour left on the clock, Nige, saddled up for either 30 minutes or the full 60 if he felt good. Chooka was ready on standby if required, but “really just wanted to cross the line first.” Despite a few cramps, BY-09, was going so well that Nige kept going through to take his fourth chequered flag at Murray Bridge (2003, 2004, 2006, 2009) The guys, girls and parents were going nuts on BYR Hill. To finish the race so strongly with four riders who could’ve gone again was great.
"Someone told me 12 - 18 months ago that the days of privateer builder / racer teams are gone. Well, I think we've proved them wrong and they can go and get stuffed.
I'd like to thank all the guys in the team who have pulled together over the past 12 months to get here. It's been a huge team effort.
Year after year, so many teams return with the same vehicles - having not improved, evolved or changed anything. This is an area that we're really passionate about and we'd love to see those teams further down the field having a look at what they're doing and trying to improve.
Thanks for the trophy. This one will replace our other one from 2004 that we smashed.
We'd also like to thank the race organisers and everyone who works to pull together this event."
The field was quite large and of a high quality. BSSC had an off day, with none of their runs fast enough to make the finals. Instead these positions were taken by the Weeroona faired vehicles in the field- The above mentioned were very much in their comfort zone: the sleek shape which lacked the frontal area of the other Bendigo trikes excelled on the smooth, broad cornered velodrome. So much so that each class final was dominated by them!
