Daniel Self's NZ Race Season Rundown

What a summer it’s been! I chose to tick off a full National Downhill (DH) Series, followed by National DH Champs here in New Zealand. Once the DH races wrapped up, and most of the DH crew called it time for a rest, I moved straight into the Enduro Series, competing in the full Southern Crown Enduro Series and the first of the North Islands 2W Enduro Series. From January 22^nd to March 13^th, I raced every weekend for 8 weeks! It was a welcome break before racing again the following weekend and then heading to Rotorua for the 2W Enduro just 2 weeks later. All in all, I spent 10 weekends racing, over a 12 week block!

For this season’s setup I had my Santacruz V10 running full FE-Sports Spec, with Pirelli on traction duties and Galfer on stopping. Galfers diskwave 223 rotors are my go-to, the thicker rotors move the lever bite point out a little which suits me well, and the extra leverage of the big rotors is ideal for keeping things under control at DH race speeds!

National DH Series #1 Rotorua

Round One of our DH series started out in Rotorua. Having grown up riding here and spent the previous weeks at home for Christmas I was super comfy on the racetrack. However, the lack of time spent on my DH bike was showing - it’s been sitting in the shed since its last race during CWX summer series, and I only got it built up again a few days before practice. After feeling uncomfortable all of practice, a few last-minute setup tweaks before seeding seemed to help, and I slotted in 6^th amongst some heavy World Cup hitters. Race runs gave me a chance to open up a little further and I just missed out on a podium finish, in 4^th. A good day out, and some lessons learned about pre-race prep.

National DH Series #2 Auckland

Round Two brings us north to Dome Valley, about an hour past Auckland. The track at Dome was super short - around 2 minutes, and had a few technical sections where carrying speed was key. It’s always a hard one to get right. I felt good throughout practice and spent the day riding with Santacruz NZ Junior; Cam Beck, we have a very similar ride style and work well together when testing out lines to find the fastest options. 5^th in seeding and then a great race run sat me 3^rd for Round Two. A podium at a national round is no mean feat in New Zealand, so I’m chuffed with that one!

National DH Series #3 Coronet Peak

It was a big haul to Round Three, with a 4 hour drive back down to Rotorua for a few days to pack up the van. Then it was a 6 hour drag to Wellington, 4 hours across Cook straight on the ferry, 4 more hours to Christchurch to unpack some of the van at the flat, and then another 5 hours driving to get to Coronet Peak! But what a track! Easily the most fun on the circuit. The Coronet Peak course is crazy fast and flowy and riders need to be on the very limit of control for this one. With NZ changing Covid Alert levels, there was no seeding run here, just straight into racing. On a track this fast I struggled not having a seeding run to gauge the speed. I pushed hard in the race run, and paid the price for taking a few risks with a small mistake forcing me off track and into the tussocks. 11^th place with the mistake, but just two seconds back from the top 5 shows the pace was good.

National Series #4 Dunedin

A week of nervously monitoring weather forecasts lead up to this race. Signal Hill is notorious for its treacherous clay conditions, becoming unrideable at the slightest hint of rain. Unfortunately for us, it was a lot more than a slight hint of rain. Saturday afternoon practice was rideable, and the bottom chute had started to dry out nicely. By Sunday morning the track was looking great, and the Juniors got a relatively dry course. As the last few riders came down, the heavens opened for Elite practice. It was absolute carnage. A broken chain while peddling to from the uplift to my seeding run didn’t help, but somehow, I still put out a 6^th place. The rain kept coming and the uplift back up for racing was a nerve racking one at best. A crash in the lottery of the main chute caught me out, as it did for so many others and that was that. 12^th.

National Series #5 Nelson

The fifth and Final round of the National Series brings us to Sunny Nelson. Sunny Nelson Delivered 80mm of rain the night before racing, however, we did get glorious weather on race day to make up for the soggy track. I was hungry to put out a solid result here, both to make up for the last two races and to get enough points to secure me a Top 3 in the overall standings. Once again though, pushing too hard got the better of me in both seeding and race runs. Two big crashes for the day but all in one piece and 10^th when all was said and done. Not at all what I was after, but as I’m learning, DH racing is a very fine margin between getting it right and getting it wrong. Despite 3 average races I still had enough points from the first two round to wrap up 4^th overall for the series.

National Champs DH

National Champs were once again at home in Christchurch. Last year was my first ever DH champs, and only 3 weeks after I had first ridden a DH bike. A huge crash in my race run put me into 11^th place for the 2021 National champs and I was gutted, knowing what could have been.  This year I was eager to make up for it and show what I could do. With two days of practice, followed by a short morning session on race day there was plenty of time for the course to chop and change. By day two I was feeling confident in all my lines and starting to push the speed. I put out a solid seeding run, however found that it only sat me in 11^th place. The pace was hot this year, everyone was pushing harder than ever for a result. A smooth race run saw me into 12^th place, faster than my seeding run but not fast enough. Still, it was good to get a race out the way without crashing, and despite not improving on my result from last year, my time was significantly more competitive. For my first full season of DH racing, I can’t complain much, especially since for me this was just a warm up into the Enduro season!