AKSonline said...
Hey y'all,
I ain't entering coz I've done my fair share of racing and competition and reckon others can have a go. My thoughts are that if you are doing it just to say you have done it and have no intention of seriously racing, then you shouldn't be entering. It's a RACE, if you aren't there to give it a good rattle and you displace someone who is keen to race, then that's p1ss poor IMHO.
I know a heap of peeps did it last year and had no intention on keeping the pedal to the metal. Strapless surfboards FFS?
Be a bit fair and let the racers race A good idea would be to run a qualifying series. Top 20 finishers from last year get automatic entry. Everyone else fights it out over three short simple races in the lead up. If there aren't enough people willing to race and fill all the positions, then open it to the random social punters.
DM
Since only two of us did it strapless last year and I was one of them I just thought I would tell my side of the story, because I cant help but feel that (although probably not intentionally) this statement is directed at me.
I had hardly touched a TT for months before this race, I almost exclusively rode a strapless surfboard and I had just recently snapped my strapped surfboard. I would have loved to have had time to organise a decent strapped directional board and had thought about getting stick on pads and straps for a gunny 6'8" surfboard that I had.
However we were only notified fairly close to the event that we were in it and conditions weren't much good for experimenting leading up to the event. I had a couple of goes at trying to goes fast on a TT and kept nosediving it etc. Next I screwed some straps into my board that I usually rode strapless but found that the strap position was to far back and the board was bogging down. With limited time to modify or buy/borrow and get used to a new board I decided to just go with what I knew. I still believe that under the circumstances I would not have been able to do any better riding something that I was not familiar with.
I had full intentions of keeping the pedal to the metal, finished in 33 minutes, well and truly in the front half of the pack and in front of a lot of 'serious racers'.
Yes I know that realistically I had next to buckleys of being competitive with the top few but would have been interested to see what would have happened if the wind had of gone a bit more SE as it had threatened to because a strapless surfboard can generally go upwind better than a strapped one or a TT.
Rant over.
. Tough cookie if some pleb in front of you beats you on his strapless board or wipes out in front and hinders your progress.
