I was never intending on doing this event but with a gentle push of encouragement by Stu, we found ourselves back entered in a race in the K2. The format was simple, 50 minutes, do as many laps as you can within the time.
Our plan was simple, start fast, keep pushing hard, see how much time we could gain on a quality field. I think our last race together in the Topsport Pro-Am series had boosted our confidence a little too much, and despite a fast start, Paul Massie and Matt Mustchin were a little too close for comfort by the first turn.
Each lap was roughly 1.1km long with two tight 180 degree turns. While we could hold a good pace on the straights, the K2 isn't the most agile when it comes to turning. At each turn we were definitely feeling the pressure of Paul and Matt who could flick around far quicker than what we were. It was only after lap 4 where we seemed to be starting to build a gap on the chasers.
By that stage the focus was then just on maintaining consistent lap times and trying to calculate how many more laps we had to go. In the end we didn't have enough time to squeeze out another lap before the 50 minute cut off so settled for 8 laps in 46:17. We managed a pretty consistent race with the following lap times:
Lap 1: 5:24
Lap 2: 5:52
Lap 3: 5:50
Lap 4: 5:51
Lap 5: 5:50
Lap 6: 5:50
Lap 7: 5:48
Lap 8: 5:52
While we took the win, what we both really want to see is a growth in the K2/doubles category in New Zealand so we can have some more competition at races. In South Africa many of the events will have a K1/single focus one year, then a K2/doubles focus the next. I'd love to see something like this happen here to add some variety to the race calendar each year.
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