Dave Balderstone memorial race

Last weekend I made the trip down to Christchurch for the final round of their summer downhill series which also doubled as the first annual Dave Balderstone Memorial race.

Dave passed away earlier in the year and it was a huge shock and loss to the downhill community to lose someone so talented and passionate about the sport. I first met Dave around 2003 when he started racing in Nelson and he was always a friendly kid who would absolutely rip the track on his Specialized Grom! After he moved up north with his family I didn't see him as much over the following years but he always had time for a chat whenever we did see each other and he will be someone I remember forever.

The race was held at Mt Hutt and the guys down there had put together a really fun track with lots of jumps and high speed sections with a bit of pedaling thrown in to keep you honest.

Apparently the top of the track will be part of the National series race in January so it was good to get a bit of an early look in.

After a fun afternoon of practice on Saturday afternoon we headed into Methven to stay at a local lodge that some of the Gravity Canterbury committee had organised so everyone could have a BBQ with Daves family and friends and have a bit of fun.

Sunday was up early in search of coffee with Snowy and Rennie to help cure the headaches from a little too much fun and then onto the hill to get organised for practice.

The track was holding together well and not changing much which made practice nice and easy so I decided to save my energy and only do a couple of runs before seeding.

I had a good seeding run but took it easy on the pedaling to save from blowing myself out for the race run and ended up seeding in 4th a few seconds down which I was happy with because I knew I had time to make up.

After an eternity of waiting at the bottom we finally got picked up and made out way back up the hill for our race runs and after some more waiting it was my time to take the start line. I decided I needed to put in a good amount of sprinting so I made the most of it where ever I could getting a few pedals in and carrying speed. The whole run was going great until I overcooked a blind drop into a corner and found myself parked head first down the bank in the bushes!

I got out and back on and found a little bit more speed down the last few corners thanks to the frustration of the crash but it wasn't enough and I ended up one spot down from seeding in 5th.

I was disappointed to miss out on winning the race as it would of meant a lot to win the memorial trophy but my time was still only 5.5 seconds off first so I know that my pace is good, I just need to keep it on two wheels.

One of Dave's best friends Sam Perry aka Wookie took a very deserved win and it wasn't surprising after seeing how fast he was during practice, he was definitely on a mission all week and it was cool to see him win.

Dave's old boss from AEL Engineering very kindly donated an awesome looking trophy for the memorial and it apparently started out as a $35,000 USD titanium jet turbine blade which had been broken so they set to it at work and turned it into the master piece pictured with Wookie below.