My back wheel was very grateful. It was allowed to go a lot faster today than it has been for a very long time. Matt had been a victim of the puncture gremlins; on the first corner, in fact. So he quickly convinced me that my rear wheel would be much better deployed in his P3 than my P2 and got on with the job of establishing another very impressive course record.
 The already depleted start list had been further reduced by another couple of withdrawals just before the start so the results sheet on the laptop screen was looking very full of holes with the addition of the number of DNFs. Most unlucky man around recently has to be Michael Round: for 3 weeks running now a tyre has let him down! This was all despite the sweeping that Barry Murphy gave the course yesterday when he removed quite a lot of broken glass.

Andy Garwood's debut with ATTA didn't even get as far as Matt's first attempt to start - the effort Andy apparently put into his take off from the line certainly found that weak link in his chain. Chain trouble also put an end to James Hale's run of PBs.

But there were plenty of good benchmarks recorded for the time we return for another go at this course. Hey, Nigel, what was your top speed down the hill?

Many thanks to Greg Matson and the Wanneroo Golf Club for the use of their facilities. Susie did the negotiations there as well as organising the marshals and signing and unsigning the course. Pimmie helped with the signing then came back to start the field. Nicky helped at the timekeeper's hutch but managed to get out for a few very high cadence laps of the circuit. After setting up the Registrations desk Lorraine was able to hand over to the highly efficient team of Carolyn Equid and Kenji. Out on the course and with plenty to do were Fred Cottier and Anthony Robinson, Dave Nangle and Harry and Judy Perry.

Because this was a new course for us, we cut a bit of slack with riders travelling wide on corners. This is certainly not a course where it is either safe or necessary to do this - quite apart from infringing our KEEP LEFT obligations. We also had a problem with riders warming up on the course and then riding on the wrong side of the road in order to avoid passing over the timing loop. There is actually no problem riding over the loop before your start time but there is a problem warming up on the course once the event has begun. On this course with its very fast downhill run past the finish, it is particularly ill-advised and inconsiderate. On most of our courses though, it is unnecessary to be riding through the start or finish once racing has begun.