Sector 3

Out of the woods and roots and into the wide open mid-section. This was ultimately where Vergier lost ground and Gwin took the race by the scruff of the neck. Gwin went fastest and took over a second out of the rest of the field which is some effort considering this was only a 40 second section of the track. In contrast, Vergier still went 5th fastest but lost nearly 1.8 seconds on the sector to Gwin.

Four races in and there’s a few usual suspects that are showing up in every wide open section of the races so far. Mick Hannah went 3rd fastest which pushed him up from 22nd at Split 2 to 9th place at Split 3. Brook Macdonald recovered from a crash up top to go 9th fastest on the sector, and former Australian 4X champion Graeme Mudd again popped up into 9th place compared to positions in the 60s and 70s for Sectors 1, 2 and 4. A 19th place in the final sector also emphasised his pedalling prowess. Definitely one to watch if he can add a little more speed in the tighter sections…

Looking at the overall placings at Split 3, Gwin wiped out Vergiers 1.2 second advantage and edged into a half second lead. Greg Minnaar went second fastest on the sector and hopped above Danny Hart into third place as the riders went back into the woods with two sectors to race…

The big picture

So, putting it all together in the heatmap and position tracker, we can see that Gwin again won it with crushing speed and consistency – fastest or second fastest in all five sectors. While Vergier held the lead for the first two sectors he couldn’t match Gwin for the whole run.

Sector heatmap

It’s really interesting to note in the position tracker that the top 5 were consistently fast, with no one crashing out. The eventual top 5 held the podium places at every sector with the exception of Danny Hart in 7th at split 1. The other interesting riders are Bernard Kerr who started relatively slowly but made up positions consistently from split 2, and Mick Hannah who smashed the middle jump section but then fell back again – see the big spike in his position at split 3. He can’t be too unhappy with 11th place though, especially with a sweet no hander on the finish jump!

Splits position tracker

What’s next?

So, going into round 5 what have we learned? We already knew that Gwin was the man to beat and he’s solidified his position at the top of the tree, but podiums for Troy Brosnan and Danny Hart are keeping the pressure on. Gwin’s not known for cracking under pressure but one mistake in the next round and the overall could be thrown wide open…