Hellfire Cup

The 2013 Hellfire Cup

My 2nd trip away with the awesome Torq team. There was some crazy teams such as Dan McConnell and Anton Cooper who were teamed up also Jack Haig(Torq) and Nathan Earl(Huon Genesis) who took the overall win.

I flew into Hobart where my toothless friend Mark Fenner picked up me and my team mates Jack Haig and Em Parks, to drive us to the camp/race village. As always Dean had set up a wicked set up with 2 huge campers and a Torq tent with sides right next to a nice Creek.

Due to the terrible weather we were soon told that everyone had move to a new race venue that was on higher ground, with no bike wash station, power or bike was station that was meant to be there. But we were all still keen to have some fun in the mud.

Day 1 - 25k - fire road and single track

I was partnered up with Mark Fenner for the 2 person catorgory. We started of sitting in the top 10 then we slowley started to drop back. There was some awesome single track who we did with some young guns. Then in the last K Fenner went down in the mud ripping ligiments off his thumb. He pushed through it and got to the end. We stilled placed 12th.

After the race we got smashed with rain. The organizers made the decision to change the format from 4 days of 2 stages to 4 days with 1 stage each. This gave us time to get cleanish and dry and deal with thw wet with out havinh to deal with getting ready for an afternoon stage everyday.

Mark Fenner was out of the race with his useless thumb. He put me into the lone wolf catorgory.

Day 2 -  17k XC race

The start went straight up a long  climb at a high pace being pushed by Nathan Earl dropping people in the first 2k's. For most of the race I was sitting in a group with Shaun Lewis and a couple of young guns.

I finshed about 5 minutes ahead of second place in the lone wolf catorgory.

Day 3 - 14k XC race

We all started with a 5K cruize stage to the start line. Wicked fun. It was great to cruize with everyone. The lead car got bogged in the mud but Pauly Van Man easiley pushed it out.

The race was mostley fire road I didnt expect to have such a great race but it was rough and muddy fireroad so it was grubby race.

The whole race I mixing it up with the top guys which was cool. I had a really good finish leading everyone back onto Blair and Lewis, then we all sprinted to the line where I ran up Anton Coopers arse nearly hitting a metal steak that was sticking up. I ended up 4th in that stage.

We then cruized back 15k to our wet muddy camper :)

Day 4 - 500m sprint

My start time was 12.05am for a 2 minute sprint. We were all shivering in the campervan eating the left over food such as cucumber. It was finaly time to warm up. After waiting for he hubdreds of people to race including a guy who track a beer every corner(single speeder of course) I was lined up with my Torq Bannoffee Guarnna trying to get as pumped up as possible . Aiming for the $600 hot lap. My race went pretty smoothly boxing my self in the fist 30 seconds. Then the last corner was in a shed with a berm made out of cow shit. Jo Sussex was there cheering me on. Turns out cow shit doesn't make good berms, I was face first in the mud. I got up an ran mu arse off to the finish line. I haven't seen times but I was told I was close to it if I didnt crash. Anton and Dan took the win.

The Torq Team had a great weekend!

Jack Haig and Nathan Earl took the overall winning $12, 000.

My self winning the lone wolf category with $300 and a weird trophy that im let to see as we had to leave before presentations.

Tasman Nankervis and 15yro Liam Jeffries won the U23 mixed team.

Tristan Ward and Em Parkes won the U19 mixed.

Im now on the Spirit of Tazmania leaving the port with the Torq crew to the Team camp to meet all the great people in the Torq community that help Australian mountain biking in such a big way.

Thank you to Dean and Gen from Torq Australia, you have changed my world with support I couldn't imagined. Also a shout out to Emma Van Seters who organised our logistical madness.

Thank you to the Team Sponsors who make up the best Australian mountain bike team.

Torq Australia

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Sram

Rockshox

Avid

Truvativ

Schwable

Adidas Eyewear

PHOTOS IN NEXT POST

These things take so long to type on my phone :/