November 18/07 10:33 am - Cross on the Rock: Final Report and Standings

Posted by Editoress on 11/18/07
 

Cross on the Rock 2007 #5 - Fletchers Farm, Jungle Cross November 11th, Errington, BC
Report by Normon Thibault

Organized and in Partnership with Arrowsmith Mountainbike Club
Brought to you by Multi-Sport Promotions: www.island-multi-sports.com

Conditions: 2c-6c. Windy. Rain. MUD.

Careful what you wish for. With all the great weather for our first 4 cross races of the series I was hoping for a bigger day....one for the strong men of cross......cross is biking AND running......we needed rain. Rain is what we got. During clean up for the Coal Cross on Saturday the rain started and did not stop until Mid Day Monday. I have heard 30mm or so......this changed the condition of the Fletchers Farm Jungle Cross course significantly from when we were doing our scouting for it on Tuesday. The mud was deeper. The creek deeper....everything “better”.

With double point for the series on the line. Series Prizes from Crankbrothers. Category Prizes for the day and of course....the glory!

The course was similar to last year with the Frontrunners LeMans start, the BIG upper field featuring a few more turns, the swampy lower field which was a bit different from the maze of last year and then the muddy-muddy back section featuring “bomb holes” and the creek.


Race #1: Beginner Men's and Women's (3 Laps)

After our honorary moment of silence the 8 strong beginners started to groove the track for the remainder of the races. From the run, the couple of Jeff Galimore (Arrowsmith) and Yvonne Visser (Arrowsmith) showed their late season form and led from start to finish. Behind them host Hugh Fletcher (AMBC) started his day long campaign with a 2nd place. It was good to see 15 year old Yani Brambant (CVCC) out racing as she has tried everything from DH to cross this year. As well, our awesome 10 year old Curran Jongsma finshed his 4 race season campaign only 6:20 behind the winner. A big improvement from last year. The age range in the beginner category was 51 years!

Frontrunners LeMans Prime: Jeff Galimore and Yvonne Visser
1st Lap Lighthouse Brewery Prime: Jeff Galimore and Yvonne Visser

Race #2: Intermediate Men

Daryl Chase (AVR) was first to his bike after the Frontrunners LeMan's run but after review the officials awarded a 2nd prize to Mat Dilay (IRC) as apparently he was the only one that actually completed the whole LeMans course....the rest took a more direct route.

Matt Dawes (Oak Bay Bikes-Wheelers) continued where he left off the day before and went out super hard to take the Lighthouse (Rootbeer) beer prime. He continued to open it up and extend his lead to 1:18 by the end. Behind him the drama was intense as Trevor Jones (Experience Cycling Club) broke his DR hanger on lap 2 and was desperately looking for a bike in the pits......for anyone to lend him one. Sean Lunny from OBB came to the rescue but after the pedal swap etc. Jones was dead last.

Chasing Dawes up front John Lowen (Arrowsmith) left youngster, Ben Glassen, (3rd) behind in the fitness and power sections of the course to take 2nd.

Series
Heading into the last race Trevor Jones looked to have the series wrapped up. Until lap 2. From last place he worked his way back through 8 riders but it was not enough in the end to take the series. With Paul Brend also having an off day and other non-factoring series riders splitting points it was young goggle wearing, double jumping, hard Beban cross section making 18 year old Ben Glassen being rewarded for his overall series performances with the series victory. Only 4 points separated the top 3 in the series.

Frontrunners LeMans Prime: Daryl Chase AND Matt Diley
1st Lap Lighthouse Brewery Prime: Matt Dawes
Converse Chuck Taylor most aggressive rider: Trevor Jones


Race #3: Master Men

Nationals Bronze medalist, Menno Jongsma (Frontrunners) along with Sean Cruickshank (Aviawest) and Andrew Brown (CVCC) quickly established a lead group of 3 on the first of 5 masters laps of the course. Cruickshank taking the Frontrunners LeMans prime. Brown leading to the Lighthouse 1st lap prime and Jongsma happy to follow along and mark the moves of the series contenders. The power was laid down on lap 3 as Brown bobbled and a gap opened up. Jongsma claiming that he “just wanted to have some fun” apparently meant, “I want to make the others suffer”. Coming down to the last lap Jongsma put in one more surge to crack Cruickshank and take his first masters win.

Series
Heading into the final Sean Cruickshank and Andrew Brown were tied for the overall series. Thus whomever ended up on top in this race would be the series winner. With Cruickshank's 2nd to Brown's 3rd he ended up with the overall victory.

Frontrunners LeMans Prime: Sean Cruickshank
1st Lap Lighthouse Brewery Prime: Andrew Brown
Converse Chuck Taylor most aggressive rider: Sean Cruickshank

Race #3: Women

Along with the LeMans start the Jungle cross course had more sections than any of our other courses with the option of running or riding. This was perfect for the well rounded Dawn Berg (Oak Bay Bikes-Victoria Wheelers) who does triathlon among other sports. Showing her run strength from the start she pulled away from her competition from the gun to win by the largest margin of the day (2:24) over Trish Sinclair (Kona). It was great to see a strong women's field and some good cross rivalries being fought in the mud of Fletchers Farm.

Series
With Dawn Berg's dominating performance in Jungle Cross and the benefit of double points the series ended up being an exact tie between Berg and our 2006 series winner, Trish Sinclair. Tie brake is placing from last race giving the series to Dawn Berg.

Frontrunners LeMans Prime: Dawn Berg
1st Lap Lighthouse Brewery Prime: Dawn Berg
Converse Chuck Taylor most aggressive rider: Dawn Berg

Race #4: Expert Men
As with most of the other categories the Expert men's had a tight points race going into the last race. The top 3 in the category; Mat Hewitt (Oak Bay Bikes-Berg), John Fokkema (Aviawest) and Normon Thibault (Frontrunners) had less than 20 points separating them.....and from what happened in the first races....anything could happen.

With Hewitt winning Beban and Cumberland he would be the man to watch. Thibault had only one goal; to beat John Fokkema who had bettered him in 5 of 5 meetings this year. Fokkema wanted his first win in the series. Everyone had a reason for coming out and racing in true cross conditions.

The race opened up a bit before the guy went off as Mat Hetitt's rear DR hanger snapped for the 2nd time this year only 5 minutes before the start. He borrowed a bike from women's winner, Dawn Berg, but the lack of comfort with the new machine showed and he was never in contention for win.

Terry McKall (Oak Bay Bikes-Wheelers) led out the Frontrunners LeMan Run with the whole group close behind. Thibault recalled Masters series winner, Sean Cruickshank, saying that the holeshot was more important in this race than any other race we have done this year. With that Thibault stormed to the front by the time the group hit the upper field section. Chased closely by Fokkema, Thibault pushed his lead into the back section of the course and had 20 second by the end of lap 1 to pick up the Lighthouse Beer prime. The lead ballooned to 40 seconds on the 3rd lap before crashing on the back section and riding his wounded bike back to the pits for a change. Behind him, Fokkema was charging and cut the lead down to 21 seconds with Drew McKenzie (Straight Up Cycles) on his wheel through the first part of the course. 1 lap later Thibault re-mounted his Kona Major Jake which had been quick tuned by Oak Bay bikes and started charging at the front to give himself a bit more of a cushion.
Coming through to the finish line for the his first ever Cross on the Rock victory Thibault kept hammering right past the finish line and into the barn.....it seems that his Dad did not flip the lap board from the 1 lap to go so Thibault kept hammering until looping back to the start area and met with everyone yelling at him that he was done......No finish line victory celebration this year.

Series
With the pre race misfortune and his final placing of 5th for Jungle Cross Mat Hewitt ended up losing the series by 1 point to John Fokkema.

Frontrunners LeMans Prime: Terry McKall
1st Lap Lighthouse Brewery Prime: Normon Thibault
Converse Chuck Taylor most aggressive rider: Jeff Reimer

Race Notes
Host Hugh Fletcher set out to complete all the events of the day and did finish 3 of the four races.....on his MTB. Pretty impressive!

There were mixed feelings on the sloppy course which ranged from the “roadie” “when is the bike race going to start” to the MTB'er......”that was AWESOME”. People were racing the course completely different from racers that were getting off up to 5 times a lap to run sections to guys like Justin Mark and Jeff Reimer who only got off for the barriers.

THANKS
Since this is the end of our 2nd Cross series there are some major thanks to give out.

To all the racers who not only show up to race but are part of our island cycling community and help out at the events. When everyone pitches in at the end of the events it is amazing how fast everything cleans up and gets done. At Fletchers the trailer was almost completely loaded before I peeled myself out of my soaked skinsuit and got changed. This makes a huge difference in our event days.

Thanks to all the host and partner clubs. We look forward to working together again next year or the year after.

Thanks to our sponsors:
Mike from Converse for hooking us up with the Chuck Taylors to give out to the aggressive riders.
Lighthouse Brewery for the 1st Lap Primes and the beer for our Riding Fool Social.
Oak Bay Bikes in Nanaimo and Victoria. Not only did the shop in Nanaimo close for almost every race their staff all raced. Rob from Victoria traveled up and helped out at all the races as well as put on the Victoria race.
Norco for the prizes and course flagging.
Jason (who is racing LaRuta right now) at Crankbrothers for the series prizes and some event prizing.
Frontrunners Nanaimo for letting me get out of the shop to put on the events and for helping out with prizes.
Greg and the crew from Orange Sport Supply and eNVy to helping us out with prizes and the cool chainrings and chain ring protectors.

Also to Mind over Mountain events for lending us their sounds system for our event.

Elitewave.com and OBB Victoria for donating the prize money for the last 3 races.

Thanks to our volunteers and crews and specifically my Dad, Rollin, who comes over to help out when ever he can and helps us out.


Next race on Vancouver Island :: Next September Season #3 of Cross on the Rock will kick off.


Pictures for this event can be found at (when we get some to post):
www.island-multi-sports.com

Full results for this event and the series are posted at:
www.island-multi-sports.com

SERIES SPONSORS
Converse All Star
Lighthouse Brewery
OakBay Bikes in Nanaimo and Victoria
Norco
Crankbrothers
Frontrunners Nanaimo
eNVy Chainrings and Chainring Protectors

Special Thanks to:
The Fletcher
Arrowsmith Bikes
Timberwest
Neighbours of the Fletchers

Final standings (final race was double points)