Hugo’s standing in the clock tower with Isabelle, looking over the Eiffel tower. “I’d imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.”
Subaru-MarathonMTB.com team mate Sebastian Jayne on the Hammerhead. Credit: Rob Conroy
Maybe a race is one big machine as well. Made up of the racers in their bright kits and shiny legs, the fans with their flashing cameras and starry eyes and the course. Every rock and grain of dirt, joining together to make the framework of the machine. Pieced together, they all work in unison to create the experience of ‘the race’.
It’s all too easy for each individual part of the machine to get lost staring at the ‘tree’ in front of them and lose focus of the forest they are in. And when you’re dropping into Hammerhead, the last thing you want to be doing is looking at the tree in front of you! In the machine of a race, I imagine the Hammerhead drop as the combustible fuel that explodes and pushes the rider around for another lap. An intravenous charge of adrenaline that hits you and keeps you flying until it starts to wane on the subsequent laps’ climb up Cardiac Arrest!
Saturday 12th of September – 12:30pm
The start gun is the ignition switch, and when it fired the machine was alive. Roaring to life in an eruption of cheers, grinding gears and years upon years of hard work and preparation. Fighting for position the racers attack each other for the holeshot. The fight to enter the singletrack is of equal importance. One long conga line of elite riders made their way up the usually mundane Cockatoo switchbacks. Spilling out onto the fire road it was another #Fullgas fight to enter the next single track section that contains the major technical challenges of the Mt Stromlo World Cup course.
McConnell was out along – but Ward was breathing down his neck. Photo – Jaime Black
Whether they were leading the charge at the front or trailing behind, each rider had their part to play to keep the machine running. Even the many awesome spectators that came out to support the riders had their part, which they played very well! The race machine was shut down, once again by Dan McConnell. Kyle Ward raced hard to catch Dan but came up short to finish second. Cam Ivory rounded out the podium in third. This race marked the end of 2015 XCO racing, and it’s time now for the race ‘machine’ to go into hibernation and start oiling itself for a big 2016!
By the way, that machine analogy came from the movie Hugo if you didn’t already know. It was on television Friday night before the Stromlo national round and is a good movie. You should watch it!