mutter, mutter—there almost WASN'T a proper event today. I arrived to find one of the locks on the Events path barrier gates had been changed—it would have been 'interesting' to see people trying to go at speed around the narrow diversion left for casual users of the path! Fortunately there were some staff on-site at the time so we got it opened.

In fact we managed to solve an array of potential disasters but everything was finally under control and the clock started ticking on time. However, Andrew Ballam thought there must have been a timing problem and he deserved a recount when he finished (with a PB) and saw his time: 9.2sec SLOWER than Amanda's. Well, she did record a course record in posting that time, taking almost 45sec from Bec Mackey's record—not an inconsiderable chunk! Amanda was also #3 on Standards behind Stu Helm and Phil Deisel both of whom have been flying pretty well recently and posted PBs today to sit at the top of the rankings. In fact it was not a bad list of PBs considering the breeze that was blowing at the outset. John Healy reckons a gust almost spun him 180° as he turned the corner into the long back straight.

He regained his composure and trotted around the circuit five times for a 41.1km/h average. Ian MacLennan had signed the course in reverse direction so that, by the time the offending barrier had been opened he could bring the trailer back into our assembly area where Geraldine James and Rachael Thompson were calmly looking after affairs at the rego-desk. Not far away Alison Ramm and Gwyn Williams were quietly sending riders off on their five-lap excursions. Up at the exit Cathi Dixon pointed at the way out and further around the course (at the far end), Lenny and Jenny McIntyre were sending course marauders on their way—off-course. John Sonego was the man on the bridge and Jenny Sammons was calling numbers for our back-up system. It all ended well, thanks to that mob.