Crimmins and Booth on top in Thredbo

It had been a record-breaking event weekend for the organisers from Rocky Trail Entertainment and the hosts of the Thredbo Mountain Bike Park: most ever mountain bike riders on the Kosciusko Express chair lift on a weekend, with 240 competitors the biggest Fox Rollercoaster Enduro event since its inception in 2012 and with 200 downhillers, the largest participant field in the RedAss Downhill State Series in years.

The event centre was buzzing with excitement as Thomas Crimmins returned to defend his enduro gravity win from last year and he did so confidently, clocking in the two fastest race runs on the popular Flow Trail in Thredbo in the Elite Men’s field, backing it up with the fastest seeding run and winning the downhill event on the Sunday. In strong form also his female counterpart, Sarah Booth – with a winning time of 17:45 min she stepped onto the top of the Fox Rollercoaster podium with Ronja Hill-Wright in second and Kellie Weinert in third. The three female elite riders raced onto the exact same podium positions on the Sunday.

Downhill’s greatest test enduro skills

Riders pushed themselves to their limits, completing countless practice runs under brilliantly blue autumn skies in Thredbo. Brad Kelly from the Central Coast had bad luck in his first race run on the Saturday, crashing and loosing valuable seconds, but still finishing as the runner up in the Elite Men’s with a gap of 14 seconds, merely one second ahead of Tim Eaton who took third spot. In the series, cross-country whippet Michael Vanos held onto his elite men’s lead and Chris Martin moved up into second position with Brett Pople in third ahead of Round four in July. In the women’s Vanessa Thompson still leads ahead of Joanne Fox and Ronja Hill-Wright moves up into third.

On the Sunday, Tim Eaton from Canberra took over the baton of bad luck – flat tire in the seeding run. In the final race run, he occupied the hot seat right until the end – finishing fifth behind Brent Smith (4th), Jake Newell from the Central Coast (3rd) and last year’s downhill elite men’s winner in Thredbo and reigning State Champion, David McMillan from Canberra. Joel Willis was the strongest challenger of Thomas Crimmins’ winning time of 4:44.69 min – the 18-year old from Lithgow finished within a second as the runner up.

Full podiums across all categories

Both events saw huge fields in the Masters (40+), Veterans (30+) and record-numbers across all junior categories. Due to the influx of Junior girls, the organisers added a Junior Under 15 girls category in the downhill event – Ashleigh Weinert from Kearns (NSW) won the category and 15-year old Mackenzie Diver from Thredbo dominated her home track and won the Junior Women’s classification.

Chainless to victory

The most sensational downhill run of the weekend was claimed by Under 17’s racer, Patrick Butler from Brunkerville near Newcastle. After a mechanical during practice left without a functioning drive train, he completed his race run without a chain and clocked in a winning time of 5:10.775 against a field of 30 riders.

The next Rocky Trail gravity events will take its racers to Kempsey (NSW) on 4+5 July with the Fox Rollercoaster and to Del Rio Resort in Wisemans Ferry (NSW) for the RedAss Downhill State Championships on 25+26 July.

>> RESULTS: Fox Rollercoaster #Enduro State Series Round 3, powered by BH Bikes

>> RESULTS: RedAss Downhill State Series Round 1