Wild Wellington was going to be the first team race for our Avanti MTB team. We were all amped and excited to get under way. We had 5 of us myself, Josh. Martyn, Sasha, and our ring in Rock star Jamie J. Wellington had been dry all week so the track was hard fast and dusty. We arrived on site early Saturday morning to unload my van and set up. We were all set up and ready to roll by 0830. Wellington had put on a cracker day, warm fine and light winds. After I had rolled round the track for a sighting lap in under 20minutes we decided we would start with three lap stints.
I had drawn the short straw of starting the race along side our seven time national champ. Stu Houltham who was on our rival mixed team. The race start was below the velodrome with a fast uphill tar-seal section leading into the single track. I managed to line up along side Stu on the front row and were joking around like usual awaiting for the gun.
Stu started at his usual hard charging pace I was able to hold his wheel and follow him into the first single track. Course was designed for all levels of riders so a lot of the steeper climbs had been taken out which meant for very fast riding but still a lot of fun. Managing to keep Stu lead to a minute I handed over to Josh for his stint who was ampted up to be on the MTB bike again.
With Sasha, Martyn and Jamie all doing fast stints we had formed a lead over the mixed field and had set our sites on trying to chase the leading open Men’s team. The gapped sea soaring between 12 and 5 minutes for most of the day. With Martyn unfortunately puncturing his 29er tire and having to ride back to the tent village on a flat. Which caused a little bit of panic in our team as he wasn’t due in for another 20minutes, with most of us chilling out and refueling the body with Peak Fuel. At the time I was sitting in the bean bag eating some cream rice and had to jump up and get on the pedals in a matter of seconds which got the adrenaline going and managed my fasted lap of the day.
Martyn’s friends home baking had won us some free coffee’s and with all of us having turns on the Megaphone screaming at each other it was only the night laps to go. We were starting to close in on the open men’s team. We had sent Josh out on what we thought would be our last lap hoping that we had enough time to complete the lap we all lined the start finish area trying to spot our man in the on coming lights constantly coming towards us. Watching the stop watch it was going to be super tight but we new Josh with give it everything. The race announcer had got it wrong by two minutes and Josh arrives in completely spent just a minute shy of the cut off. Which would of given us the overall win as well as our mixed division win.
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