Tim sent in his race report talking about his first ever overall national victory…

Photos: supplied / Mike Hannah

On the weekend on the 11 and 12 of April, the second round of the South African Downhill Nationals took place in Pietermaritzburg, KZN. Coming into the race I was lying second in the series behind Greg Minnaar, but unfortunately he wasn’t at the race this time round.

The pressure coming into the race was high and I was very nervous, as I had to try follow up my last result, nevertheless I was feeling good and strong. I felt fit and ready to try and get a good result.

The track was really good, with a tight, twisty and technical top section, which then led into a very long peddling section and finally finished with a super fast section with some big jumps.

Practice started on the Friday and the track was super dry and loose, nevertheless I felt really good on the track and had a great practise session. Saturday was the next day of practice and the weather wasn’t looking too good, as it was very wet and misty. The drizzle eventually cleared up leaving the track nice and moist at the top and very slippery in the forest sections. The day’s practise went well as I got all my lines dialled and the track slowly dried up to become very grippy.

Sunday finally came, which was race day. I was feeling the pressure, but was also confident as I felt good on the track. After one last practise run before the race started I was all ready to race.

Next thing I knew I was in the start gate ready to go and I was the last man down the hill. My run started off really well as I got all my lines super pinned, I then entered the peddling section and I knew it was going to be hard. I peddled all that I could, I’ve never peddled so hard in my life. I finally reached they bottom and was anxious to hear my time, at the same time I was half collapsing with tiredness. I managed get the fastest time down the hill, 3 seconds ahead of Johann Potgieter. I couldn’t believe it as I didn’t think my time was that fast.

I went into the second run with a 3 second gap to second place and a 4 second gap to third. Unfortunately my second run didn’t go as well as my first as I washed out in a few places, so I had to rely on my first run time.

Luckily when I reached the bottom I was relieved to hear no one had beat my time. Johan had bettered his time, but I managed to beat him by a second. This was my first proper overall national win, as Greg Minnaar beat me in the first round. I was extremely happy with my result.

The race was very close and I had a really good time. I also got to meet my team mates in the GT Mr Price cross country team which was really cool. Overall the weekend went really well and I had one of my best races up to date. I had no problems on the weekend and the bike felt super good as normal.

I would just like to thank Erik (team manager) for the support and for lending me a GT Mr Price gazebo, which helped out a lot on the day. I would also like to thank all my sponsors, Gt/Mr Price, Omnico and Greg Minnaar racing, and thanks to Neil and Lance (Omnico) for the constant support.

The next race is on the 16th of May in George.

Regards,

Tim

Tags: tim bentley

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 8:50 am and is filed under Downhill, Interviews, 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.