Hi Banshee Fans,
The first round of the King of Ballarat series (Vic, Australia) was held on Sunday June 20th. A large field of riders was greeted with wet and greasy tracks courtesy of persistent rain overnight. This made racing difficult for the riders however, by the amount of cheering up the hill, spectators loved it.
The race format differs somewhat from a normal downhill race as riders race
3 timed on two tracks and then the times are totaled to get a winner.
The tracks are short (around a minute each) but have the same features of a fully blown downhill course.
Banshee rider Dave Hetherington won with a time of 2.47.5 just .7 of a second ahead of reigning K.O.B champ James Carter. Dan Mclean was 3rd ahead of 4th placed Aden Wyber having his last race before heading overseas on national duties with the Aussie team.
This was an impressive win for Dave as he had issues in his first run which put him nearly 6 seconds down in 11th place. He won the second race by 1.9 seconds on a rain soaked track, many riders coming to grief in the slippery conditions on the second last turn (a sweeping left hander on a clay
surface) much to the delight of the large crowd.
Dave put in a blinder in the 3rd and final race having a clean run on a drying track winning by nearly 2.5 seconds. This earning him a win on the day.
Dave said after the race, "I slipped a pedal after the start, rode the top tube and veered off the track and lost a lot of time. You just can't give these guys 6 seconds head start in a sub 3 minute race! I kept focused in the second race and had a clean run and made up some time. I didn't give myself a chance of winning overall but I concentrated on having a good third run with the hope of salvaging a podium. We made the right choice with tyres and the legend was just awesome".
As I said earlier it was an impressive win given the circumstances (the head start he gave away, slippery race conditions and caliber of riders).
Overheard during the second race, down the bottom where the action was, I was standing in the crowd and Dave went through. Smooth, so smooth he looked slow; one guy turned to his mate, nodded and said "that's the Banshee Legend"
Up top where the riders were gathering for their start, one rider asked "who won the second race?" the reply "some guy on a Banshee"
Kinda says it all,
The Banshee juggernaut rolls on.
Cheers,
Team Banshee Australia
