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24hr Control - It Rocked All Night!
by the Keyneton MCC
Well, the 24 Hour Trial is now over for another year. The Club’s control rocked all night, and from all reports was one of the largest and best controls of the event. Before we look at the people that made it happen, lets look at the guys in the Club that had a ride, and did the Club proud.
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59 - Gerard Saint at the Keyneton MCC at
Control Davey on Lap 3
While the Club didn’t come away with a win in the solos, or sidecars, we did pull out 2nd and 5th in the outfits with the unlucky Mark Launer & Matt Neldner 2nd (for the 4th time), and the Club’s ‘exciting young guns!’, James Rowe & Nigel Coe 5th. Whilst Mark & Matt had to settle for the runner up spot again, it was probably their gutsiest effort yet, with a huge crash late on lap 3, whist they were leading, resulting in Mark breaking his collar bone. That he was able to continue and over the last lap still be in contention for the win says a lot about the determination and guts of the man. A special mention also to Dane Gilbert, brother of Lara Wedge, who rode with the old stager, Neil Russack, and finished his first full 24 Hour in 10th place.
Leading our solo riders across the line was Sean Throup, after suffering another bout of ‘24 Hour luck’, coming home in 6th. Take away the 10 point penalty he received on lap 2 and ……. well there is always next year! Keyneton members rounded out the top 10 with Tristan Throup 8th, after a troubled (engine problems) ride, James Ferris 9th and Scott Irrgang 10th.
Other great rides from some of our young riders were Daniel Boehm cracking the top 15 for the first time in finishing 14th and rookie Nick Throup, 19th in his first 24 Hour. Couple of older stages also had good rides with Rick Henke coming home 25th and Andy Carter, in his last ride, finishing in 58th, out of the 74 finishers.
Congrats also to new member, and the only KMCC rider in the Clubman Class, John Hobson who, if not for misreading a course sign in the very paddock where the Club was and getting docked 100points, would have finished 2nd in class. As it was he finished 3rd.
Congratulations from the Club must go to the three winners, two of whom used to be members when they lived locally. The mercurial Shane Diener now has 10 wins, and 5 in a row to his name, well done Shane, and good luck in the Safari. Stuey Gerhardy first swung in the 24 in 1983 and 25 years later, in his 17th crack at the event he kept ‘rookie’ rider Chris Schultz upright for an unexpected, but very worthy win. If you now retire Stuey, what a way to go out, and well done to Sexy Eyes for a brilliant ride!
Unluckiest KMCC riders over the weekend would have had to have been the sidecar teams of Fred Weckert & Damien Nash and Glen Wundenberg & Shane Parks who both saw daylight on lap 4 before their engines expired, likewise solo boys Shane Beckmann and Simon Kurtz who also had last lap heartache. At least they made the start, unlike the team of Andrew Warnest & Chris Clark, and reigning outfit passenger, Tony Tscharke. Andrew & Butts’ bike wouldn’t run properly and after trying 3 carbys and 2 sets of electrics (thanks Fred & Trev Otto) they pulled the pin at 9.30pm Friday night, while T-Bone’s rider, Dave Manuel had to pull out through injury, denying them the chance to go back-to-back.
DNF of the event though would have to go to Matt Hobbs, who threw it away on some rocks and smashed casings within sight of the KMCC control on lap 2. He pushed the bike into the control, raided the ‘old man’s’ esky and waited for the pick up! Sean Heidy was heard to say that if Hobbsy was riding a Suzuki it wouldn’t have happened, to which the reply from Matt was, and it was razor sharp and fast, if I was on a Suzuki I wouldn’t have been going fast enough to crash!
NOW TO THE CONTROLS
This year saw the Club run 2 controls side by side (Long Hill & Daveys) on the property of Angela and Chris Hunter just the Kapunda side of Eudunda. Many thanks must go to Chris and Angela for all the work they put in, and for supplying some firewood. (Most of the blokes present would like it if you could plant some trees before we use it again Chris!)
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Its all hands on deck as Bikes 71 - Todd
Blackwell, 72 - Tyson Brown, 73 - Alan Davidson wait to ride out
of Keyneton MCC Control 3 - Long Hill on Lap 3
Although windy during the day, making marquee setting up somewhat difficult, luckily for the members the rain stayed away and the wind died down during the night, making it comfortably cold, but with enough still blowing to keep the fog away.
Sean Heidenreich and Neil Neldner, along with the Hobbs and Walker families, lead a team that set up 2 controls, in the Eudunda wind (thanks for the droppers Shunt), and then proceeded to watch it all work like clockwork right through the night, (once Andrew Earl was taught how to sign his name!) With a large band of helpers on hand on Sunday the clean up also went like clockwork, with all able to return to Kapunda in time to watch the finish if they wished. A big thanks and well done to Neil and Sean for their efforts again this year.
With 2 controls to look after more hands than usual were needed to run the controls and what was a pleasing thing is that the Club had no trouble filling all positions.
Long Hill control was led off on lap 1 by Mark Heinrich, Rooster Harrison and team, followed by The Barratt boys, Mark, Peter, Ryan & Wack, and, Mark & Robin Schick on lap 2, Kym & Dylan Schmidt, Ash Hearl, Martin Wedge and Andy Earl on lap 3, with lap 4 run by Mike Baraglia, Rowan Waye, the returning Barratt boys and Martin Wedge.
Daveys was ably manned by Nigel Evans, Peter Kurtz and crew on lap 1, Saegy, Menz, Shunt and Scholzy on lap 2, ‘the Keyneton Girls’, Hayley Plowman, Nikki Ferris, Dianne Heney and Lara and Karen Wedge on lap 3, with lap 4 looked after by Smithy, Gwen, Margaret, Mark and crew.
Throw in all the people that just showed up and helped like Chris ‘Butts’ Clark and Kevin Steinert, plus some previous Club members and 24 Hour winners like Ian Zander and Leigh Hollamby and the Keyneton controls were the place to be seen!
James Ferris and Nick Throup were most impressed by the Keyneton Girls on lap 3 as they came screaming in and pulled up with rather impressive ‘stoppies’ at the feet of Nikki and Hayley. All figured that James was just showing off for his sister (Nikki), and Nick was just, well, being Nick and showing off for everyone!
Well done to all the members, and friends, of the KMCC who helped make the control such a success, ‘12 Hour Monday’ at the Brauhaus saw many members comment on how it was such a good control to come into, unlike some who were only manned by a few people.
One such control was visited by Butts, Steiny and Early late on lap 3 and when they saw only 2 people trying to run the control they stayed and helped out for the remainder of the lap – well done guys!
Congratulations to all who helped out in any way.
To view Photos taken at Keyneton's Long Hill and Davey Controls - click here