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Hell yeah I do. I still have two more classes to enter in Finke yet.
40-45yrs
over 45yrs.Hmmmm, where do I start? I’ll go back to the week before the race.
Two days before I had to leave for the race, my bike still looked like this.
I had done the North Star trail ride the week before and I didn’t want to give the engine a freshen up until after that. My forks also started to leak at North Star. I decided that I didn’t want to run the risk of them leaking during the race. So for the week before the race was spent in the shed after work, rebuilding the forks, doing a top-end rebuild, changing the gearing and fitting new tyres. Whilst still keeping on the good side of the missus with helping clean the house and getting the kids to bed each night.
Friday morning came around really quick and I packed my sh!t to hit the road. That’s when things started to go downhill. I hit a wallaby in the first 100km which half tore the bumper of the front of the hilux. Thirty minutes later, a few zippy ties and I was on my way again.
I was still running the standard jetting and wanted to go up a few sizes in the main to help with the long straights. The plan was to pick one up from a bike shop in Moree on the way. They had none so decided to risk it.
I arrived at Condo by mid afternoon and met up with the old man. We got the bike scruiteneered, I signed in and we went for a walk around the prolouge track.The track was about 3km long and started right at the MX track. It wound around through the MX track and then darted off through the scrub on to some single track, over a fence jump and eventually ended up finishing on the speedway track. We then settled in for the night.
This was the start of the fuel dump for both fuel stops. By morning there would have been in excess of 400 fuel cans here.
Saturday morning was an early start with the riders briefing at 6:30am and prologue starting at 7am.
I had a pretty good run and got 72nd out of 220 riders, which I was happy with as I was only aiming for a finish in the top 50% of riders for the weekend. Nugget was waaay waay back in 178th after prologue but I’ll get to him later!After Prologue finished, we had a long wait before we could start as there was some sort of stuff-up with the transponders and the timing system. During this time, the old man happened to notice that I had oil all over the bottom of my shock. Yellow Mountain just became a whole lot more interesting! I think it was about 11am before we got underway.
I had a good run to Tottenham (apart from riding a pogo stick with wheels! Thank God for Steering Dampers.) The track consisted of plenty of fast stuff along fencelines and the edges of wheat and canola crops. There was also some nice loamy singletrack to blast through and a couple of rocky sections as well. The bike was pinging fairly well, from running too lean, so I took it a bit easier than I would have liked but was still having a ball.
That night I lifted the needle one clip, to help with the pinging, and changed the air filter, which was pretty putrid.
The race back to Condo was a better day, with less pinging from the engine. That?s until I got to the first fuel stop and saw oil leaking from under the steering damper. Yellow Mountain just became even more interesting!
I backed it off a bit then and was feeling a little low. Pinging engine, no rear shock and no steering damper. I was almost in cruise mode after that thinking, ?what more can go wrong?. As people would catch me, I would move to the side and let them past.With about 60km to go I heard another bike come up behind me and I moved to the side and this smart arse on a stinking KTM came past waving at me and doing fist pumps! It was Nugget (a mate)! That was the last straw! I thought he was way ahead but he had got lost earlier and so I had actually been leading him back on day 2.
The Race had just begun! Now Yellow Mountain became a really bloody interesting! For the last 60 odd kays we fought for the lead through sandy loamy pine country, flatout down fence lines, over rocks, smashing through scrub and over logs. It was bloody awsome fun. I think the lead changed about three times before Nugget finally came over the finish line about 30 seconds in front of me. I did the leg on day two in 3:00:41 and Nugget got a Sub-Three time of 2:59:41. Our overall times for the weekend were Nugget 62nd with a time of 06:07:21 and I was 65th with a time of 06:09:26. Mine would have been a lot slower than that if Nugget hadn?t come a long and sparked me up a bit.
Dad headed off pretty soon after the race and I waited around for jerry cans to come back in from the fuel stops. By the time they came back in I?d had too many beers, so decided to stay anoher night and have a few more beers with the boys before heading back to Gundy in the morning.
I had a great time for my first Yellow Mountain, even with the problems I had. I was a well organised event and I will be back for sure.
Please post any pics you may have from this year as I don?t have many. And add any thing else to make a good story. I might try to get some helmet cam footage up later. I wish the battery wasn’t flat during the battle with Nugget as there would have been some great footage there.
New piston and rings.
Now to change gearing from 13/50 to 15/45, rebuild the forks and put a new rear tyre on.
Three days untill I leave and the bike looks like this. Better pull my finger out after work!
Things to do.
Topend rebuild.
Richer jetting.
Rebuild Forks.
Change gearing.
Test gearing.
160,000km service on Hilux.
Pack everything.My only gripe was that breakfast was a bit crappy. I was really looking forward to a bacon and egg roll but, it would have been one of the worst I ever had.
We went out Friday night to help with sign on for a few hrs and then went back to Gundy to a nice warm bed for the night. There was 709 riders signed up Friday night.
I was back out there at 7:30am and did the opening sweep ride of the 40km and the 20km loops (opening gates and final checks of the tracks). Then heard about the 200 rider bottle neck in the enchanted forest. We raced out there and shut the 80km loop to stop anymore congestion (it was opened back up later for a while after lunch). I got into the middle of the forest and parked the bike and thats where it sat for about 2 hours! I then spent a while pushing bikes over rocks for the ones that could ride through and then finished of by riding other peoples bikes through that where basically a crying mess and JUST COULDN’T DO IT ANYMORE! It was a bit tiring, riding bikes out of the forest and then walking back in to get the next, but at least I got to test ride a few different bikes.
I belive we will keep the bypass of the enchanted forest in future years now. We never put a by-pass in before as we knew most would go around and miss all the fun .Then just before the fuel stop I came across a young feller running towards me. His father had come off and broken his arm. I got his father sorted and directed a recovery vehical to him and then contined on. The rest of the loop consisted of bikes out of fuel, broken leavers and a few flat tyres. It took me about 5 hours to get around the 80km loop and was ready for a beer by the time I got back (160km for the day). I rolled into my swag just before 12am and then lay there listening to the dickheads in the camp next to me diribble on about how good they were until about 4:30am. (note to self EAR PLUGS)
Sunday was much better (apart for the crappy breakfast). After riders brief, I sent my 7yr old son up in the helicopter for a joyride of the 20km loop which he still can’t stop talking about. I then swept the novice track with him for a while until my wife got back out from Gundy (she dosen’t like camping out). I then went and swept the 40km and the 80km loop. The 80km loop was a blast on Sunday. I saw hardly anyone and didn’t get stuck behind anyone in the tight sections. I compleated it in just under 2 hours which I was happy with. I heard the record for the weekend was 1 1/2 hours.
All up, I think it was a pretty good weekend. I belive the only injurys where a broken arm, a leg, a pelvis and serious reaction from a bee sting. The broken arm is the only one I can actually confirm as I was talking to his son again later and he said the xrays confirmed a break. I think it’s pretty minimal injuries considering there where 1,400 riders out there.
I know have a very busy week rebuilding my forks and piston/rings and packing everything I need for Yellow Mountain Cross Country this weekend down at Condobolin. ^roost
