This weekend was my first Nationals event and I went into it very excited. We have been doing training at Karapiro to get my bike set up for sand and to get a feel for using a sand tyre. We did the early sign on on Thursday and set up our pits so on Friday morning we had no need to rush and after riders brief we were the second class on the line. We rode practice and three races on Friday, two races on Saturday and two races on Sunday. The track was nicely groomed, deep soft sand on Friday; it wasn’t prepped for Saturday so started to get some gnarly braking bumps and ruts forming on the jumps, and then had some work done on Sunday after some overnight rain. I managed my nerves really well, not letting the track or pressure get to me and rode each 15 minute race with a clear head, not letting anything that happened in the last affect me. I had a few crashes but it wasn’t from lack of trying. I pushed myself and my bike as much as I could and sometimes my jumps and railing corners worked and other times the sand crumbled under my bike. I went 5-9-5-12-3-3-8 over the three days for 6th overall. I am so proud of myself for not giving up at any point and to walk away as 6NZ in the first Pro65 championship at Junior Nationals. I was aiming for a Top 5 finish and only just missed my goal, battling with some really amazing riders on a foreign track. I’m now going to take a little break – long enough for Dad to be able to rebuild my bikes – and then go back to hunting down my next goal. Watch this space… I’m going to be doing some pretty cool stuff.
Soren Staudinger 