WHAT a fantastic first night out for the Dirt Crits in the 2024 to 2025 season.

Twenty-five competitors with heaps of first timers and even an international competitor.

It was a fun night for me, and I hope everyone else had a great time.

One of the many highlights was the five female competitors.

Great to see Serena, Nicole, Ariel, Rachael and Miranda.

I hope to see you all regularly up there.

There were a number of younger competitors upgrading from Junior Dirt Crits, welcome and good luck for the season.

For the 2024 to 2025 season the club is kicking off new season trophies for the Junior age category riders.

There will be prizes for these categories at the end of the season.

The course and Race Site are in great shape after the recent rejuvenation works.

We can’t thank Ant Bateup enough for all of his work.

Plus, the working bee last weekend has made an amazing change to the start and finish area, a huge lift in appearance and the feel to the place, so also a huge thanks to everyone who helped out with that.

There is still a lot of work that needs to be done so keep your eyes open for the next working bee day.

The racing for the night was our now traditional first week event of a two lap consistency test.

The winner on the night is the person who can complete two timed laps with the least time difference for the comparative times.

It was a very competitive night.

The eventual winner and first place getter for the evening was Reuben Bateup.

He completed two laps in Exactly the same elapsed time of nine minutes and 51 seconds.

Zero seconds difference.

I believe that that is an unbeatable result.

In Equal second place were three first time Adult Dirt Crit riders all with a miserly one second difference, including the two highest placed women Serena Moring and Nicole Hoebergen.

Also in equal second was Ben Ross.

I think Ben deserves a special mention, still an U15 competitor and looking very quick.

I predict it won’t be too long before he can show most, if not all of us older folks a clean pair of heels.

Luke Vivash managed a remarkable three second difference which on any other night would have potentially been a winning score but this night it was good enough for fifth place only - that’s cruel.

Other special mentions:

• Fastest 2 laps combine on the night – Cam Dobson.

• Fastest 2 lap Female – Serena Moring

• Fastest 1 lapper – Ryder Chadd

Thanks everyone for turning out.

I look forward to seeing you all for the second XC night in a fortnight’s time.