Between La Bresse last week and Val Di Sole this week the organisers of the Innsbruck invitational put on an event for 10 world cup race teams to showcase the riding in the local area, and to put on a show for the crowds that turned up.
Now please bear with me here while I explain the rules because it was not a normal downhill race…. To start with, the track was 4.2km long and all steep as hell, with a fast time around the 10 minute mark, but on top of that the race was a team event involving teams of half local racer ‘wildcards’ who knew the track inside out and half Pro’s from the 10 world cup teams invited. So there were 10 teams in total and most teams had 2 Pro’s (or in some cases 3 if they had a 3 man team) and 2 wild cards (or 1 if they had 3 pro’s on the team) making 4 team members in total.

Everyone raced individually against the clock on the same track as normal but the racers were divided into 4 groups, A, B, C and D. 1 racer from each team raced in each group (or block of 10 people) and where they finished in their block earned points for the team. Block A and B were all Pro’s and C and D were mainly ‘wild card’ local riders so it was fair rather than mixing everyone in together and like I say points were added up not times to get the final team score. Oh yes and you could drop your worst result. So sounds complicated I know but that is my best explanation.

The event lasted a whole week with the teams taken around local bike parks to ride and shown about the local area, town and party spots in the evenings but the race was on Saturday and there was a great crowd who trecked up a monster of a hill to watch the race. It was a fun week and a tough race with the course being really steep and very tight so not like race tracks we are used to. Nevertheless a great challenge and a good weeks riding around innsbruck.

Hats off to the local guy we met who holds the record for most runs on this track in 24 hours with 29 runs! unbelievable.

Anyway the wildcards we had on our team this week were Thomas Schmitt AKA the professor….. and Dominik Cisse. Both of whom came through strong for us with the professor proving to be the fastest wild card of the day, and with Ben notching up the 3rd fastest time of the day behind Brook Mcdonald and Filip Polc, Team Dirt Norco walked away in 3rd place behind MS Evil in 1st and Alpine Commencal in 2nd.

Team results are as follows:

1st- MS Evil Racing

2nd- Alpine Commencal Austria

3rd- Dirt Norco Race Team

But for a full breakdown of riders etc check out:

http://nordkette-downhill.at/?lang=en

Keep an eye out for our article in the mag on this week of events in innsbruck too which has been great fun from jumping off a tram over the boss off public transport in Innsbruck for a publicity stunt to bashing out some laps in Tirol bike park to a full scale war with gummybears (yes thats right the sweets). Take it from me if you ever get into a fight with penny sweets, make sure Brook is on your team.

Stanny