Mongoose WC DH Series - No. 2 Sir Lowry's

Last Weekend saw No. 2 of the Western Cape Provincials at Sir Lowry's Pass. Nice warm winters day with a bit of wind, but not enough to stop a great day of racing!

I went through to the practice day on Saturday & here's my experience of the weekend & as usual lots of photos to go with it.Drove through nice & early on Saturday morning, eager to see & shoot a new track. I did my usual trick of catching the shuttle up & trying not to knock my teeth out on the bars on the bumpy ride. We were dropped off next to a train track & had to still go a little way down it to the start. On a bike it was a nice roll down, I wasn't as fortunate with nearly 20kg on my back. The sun was starting to warm up & I was feeling it.

Not knowing at all what to expect I made my way down & quickly got to some interesting dips in & out of a gully & then dropping down into it & riding along it through a little rocky section.

I started off at the drop into the gully & it had a little jump before so you could hip into it, but not many were taking that line. Setting my lighting up was quite tricky, the vegetation is thick along the edge of the track & not much space for tripods. The sun was in the perfect spot for a rim light, so just used 2 strobes, one behind the rider to the right for a rim on the other side & one in front below to the left.

I didn't want to sit at one spot for too long & quickly moved down into the gully.
Some of the riders were checking lines & I was just scratching my head looking at the potential of this spot wondering how the hell I'm going to go about lighting it with absolutely no space on the sides at all. My first thought was to go with the natural light, but with the sun popping out from behind the clouds all the time creating patchy light, that wasn't going to work. Plan B was the answer. Clamber up the muddy sides & put my strobes up top & do a bit of "gardening" to get a clear beam to the rider. I set one behind on the right & one next to the rider on the left & one from in the gully with the tripod legs barely open leaning against a tree.
With the sun coming & going, the feeling of the shots was constantly changing & with the riders taking different lines I could make minor changes to my composition & it feels like its a different place.
Being practice the guys were often riding together & was quite nice to have 2 riders in the shot for a change.

I must admit, my idea of moving a lot got seriously slowed down by this spot, but it was more than worth it. I made my way down, taking notes of what there was & watching the guys lines & putting it in storage for race day.

I got to a soft berm after a big double & saw some of the guys were hitting it hard & getting some nice roost & thought it could be good.
There were a few drops of rain from the south easter clouds coming over the mountain, that wasn't a problem, but wind was being a bit of a pain on the composition side as well as the riding. It was thrashing the bushes around & sending branches in front of the rider, but I was patient, kept shooting & got some without the unwanted leaves.

That was it for the practice day, I was really amped on the track & looking forward to shoot some of the sections I'd left for race day!

Up early, batteries all charged & me feeling a bit slow. I drove through & was looking like the wind had calmed down & the clouds were gone & was a surprisingly warm morning for winter.

Some of the riders were taking a few last practice runs & were loading up the shuttles.

I changed my tactic for this track & didn't go up with the shuttle. 2 reasons, the walk across to the start wasn't seeming like a good idea & with riders coming down the first part is not easy to walk without getting in the way or having to hide in a bush every 5 steps.

I walked up a bit more than halfway to a double rock drop & was planning on trying to catch some of the guys launching out of a dip a bit higher up, but the light here was too good with the sun behind again & only a few of the riders would be doing the other jump nicely for shots, so would've been a bit of a chance there anyway.
I had one strobe either side on the rocks & after a test shot saw that I needed a bit more light on the bottom, so put another one a bit further down the track to lighten it up a bit.
With the last practice runs coming down I was lucky enough to have the perfect gap & as a rider went off the drop the previous one had just lined up with the strobe I had placed further down. Then race time! Stayed there for a few more shots & was ready to move on to the next spot.

Next spot was a little nasty rock garden with some barbed wire on the side, so little room for error. Again good to see the different lines & changed my composition as much as possible. The wind had picked up a bit again & was moving the leaves around just enough to give me a tough time.
I stayed there till the end of the first run & was keen to see how the faster guys handled it.
Jonty, Gary & a few of the other guys were hopping through it & interestingly enough Pottie just rolled through smooth. I'd seen other guys come through the same spot & hit at least one rock quite hard, but he just floated through.

For the next run I shot a corner leading into some burnt pines. It wasn't the best spot for heavy riding & I caught a lot of guys sitting, but the burnt trees made for some interesting shots & moved off after snapping a few.

Just a short way down was quite a long double into the soft berm I'd shot the day before. I got the fish out & shot the gap a bit.
I was keen to try get some roost shots with the fisheye, but the inside line was faster & most riders weren't coming close to the berm, so went back to the gap & stayed there till the end of the race.

Pottie was the last rider & made my way down to the prize giving. Pottie took it with Jonty close on his tail as usual & Stefan Garlicky took 3rd.

Top 5 were:
Johann "Pottie" Potgieter
Jonty Neethling
Stefan Garlicky
Gary Barnard
Luke Davis

check the Sir Lowry's album for the rest of the results.

Another great weekend of riding & thanks to Chris & his crew for organising & building one of my new favorite tracks to shoot & to Mongoose & all the sponsors.
Next race is in Eden on the 15th August & am looking forward to another weekend full of downhill.

This is the P.S. part of the post that can't be left out. After the race a few of the guys went through to a local jump spot & winning the race wasn't the end of the day for Pottie, he still had some Red Bull fumes going to pull this nice flat table!