North to South, East to West, MONGOOSE is best. This was the general consensus amongst the riders this past weekend at the fourth and final race in the 2011 Mongoose GAS Gauteng Downhill provincial cup series at Dirk Lourens’s private track in Malelane, Mpumalanga…

It sure was a long way to trek for a race, especially after the costly year that was the 2011 DH season, but the die-hards who made the effort were rewarded for their loyalty with what is in my opinion one of the best DH tracks around. A strange anticipation and initial case of nervousness takes hold of you as you stand at the start and look ahead and suddenly realize the horizon sits at about a 35-40 degree angle in front of you and you are seconds away from descending down that slope into the valley far far below you within the next three to four minutes.

After almost a quarter of the responded riders canceled at the last minute we were left with a final total of 16 riders who made the trip to the event. During Saturday’s practice runs everything ran smoothly until fellow rider Riaan Roos biffed out at the finish bombhole, not even 5 meters before the finish line resulting in a broken and dislocated arm, proving that it’s not over until you cross the finish line. Luckily the swift action of the MoyoMedics ensured Riaan was quickly stabilized taken to hospital for emergency surgery.

We were woken by a chilly lowveld morning on Sunday and the riders were all ready to tame the course after getting to know it a little better the day before. The usual best of two runs applied and a random starting order was announced as there were no qualifiers the day before. All eyes were on new kid on the block, Ryan Frerichs who has made a solid impression on the rest of the rider contingent with his performance in the previous legs of the provincial series. And as the riders started coming in after their second runs it was official, Frerichs takes the race and the cup, with lowveld locals Dirk Lourens and Dricus Pretorius coming second and third respectively.

The overall results were as follows:

1   Ryan Frerichs                   EM     2:42,31

2   Dirk Lourens                     EM     2:49,63

3   Dricus Pretorius              EM     2:50,43

4   David Hogan                     EM     2:52,19

5   Anthony Brookes           EM     2:54,44

6   Dustin Rudman               EM     2:57,80

7   Marius Snyman              EM     3:00,24

8   Shane Botha                     SP      3:06,77

9   Marnus Swanepoel       EM     3:09,82

10 Andries van Wyk          EM     3:15,13

11 Des Ellis                             EM     3:28,04

12 Nadia Botha                     SP     3:40,54

13 Laurentius Potgieter   SP     3:41,50

14 Francois Swanepoel    EM     4:22,69

ELITES

This event would not have been possible without the help of a few people, many many many thanks to MONGOOSE for their title sponsorship of the series. A big thank you to Dirk Lourens for building this amazing track and ensuring there is a shuttle uplift for the riders. Thank you to MoyoMedics for their swift and professional service. Thank you to Malelane Bricks for the use of the land and the accommodation and to Eugene and Marnus for allowing 14 people to stay in their house.

Sports class

Some video footage of the weekend’s riding will be posted soon. My apologies for the shoddy quality pictures, they will be replaced as soon as i get the better quality photos sent to me.

And lastly but by no means least, a very BIG thank you to the riders for making the effort to attend the event and also for your support of the series.

Tags: Gauteng DH, Gauteng provincial DH, Malelane, Mongoose GAS provincial cup, Mongoose GAS series

This entry was posted on Monday, June 27th, 2011 at 6:23 pm and is filed under Downhill, Events, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.