Replacing the Yarram round, last weekend’s Heathcote round of the VORC was a phenomenal success.
Damien Milton from MCRCV led the charge and really stepped up to the plate to make sure Heathcote went ahead for the riders, with strong backing from the Motorcycling Victoria (MV) Enduro Management Committee and a small army of volunteers (with plenty of new faces) the event was set! These selfless volunteers arrived at Heathcote on Saturday to peg out the following day’s course, with everyone pitching in, the prep was all done and dusted by 1:30 – 2pm-ish.
Come Sunday morning and there was great participation for the seniors only cross country.
The weather was absolutely perfect, with a small amount of rain overnight, and a lovely sunny day the ground was just tacky enough to not create dust or get bogged down in mud!
Everyone loved the course! With a bit of everything in there like grass and some technical sections, it was a great mash-up. The course was running about a minute shorter than planned due to one section of the course being wrecked during the sighting lap. Still, everyone had a ball and there was great competition to be seen and great starts!
It was very disappointing to see some riders creating new lines and destroying the course boundaries that had been carefully laid the day before. It was quite upsetting to see some with a blatant disrespect for our officials – as officials worked to correct the bunting and course markings, some riders could be seen cutting up and behind the officials outside the designated track. It’s really not fair when riders start to get creative or lazy; this also unfairly and significantly can impact rider times as well. It was, however, great to see some of the pros and experts leading the way with a great show of sportsmanship and actually stopping to correct the bunting or finding an official that could.
The pack up was as equally fantastic and quick as the set up with everyone chipping in, the pack up was done in two hours with everyone hitting the road early!
This event was basically a community type involvement set up with people coming from everywhere to help out with everything from official’s roles to sweeping and everything in between! It was a great community event run by our off-road community headed up by Damien Milton and the MV Enduro Committee. Without these guys, the event would literally have not been possible! A simple ‘thanks’ can really not cover how proud and grateful we (MV) and the riders are for everyone giving their time to make this event possible!
As can be expected Daniel Sanders, Lyndon Snodgrass, pulled it out in the pros with Tom Mason and Jesse Lawton closely in tow.
All of the classes ran really well. It was great competition to be seen and great racing all around.
Trent Tucci had a mechanical issue but still managed to finish strong.
Luke Ablitt, Rodney Smith and Ryan Barton and rode incredibly well in the ‘Clubman over 35 under 45 A’, they started strong and remained consistent, with some healthy competition to be seen along the way!
Again a massive thank you to everyone who made this event possible. We will see you all at Leongatha for round 13 & 14 on the 15th of September!
Full results are available at Speedhive: https://speedhive.mylaps.com/Events/1576840
Image credit: Rechelle Beveridge Images