The New Fast One – 2011

Early on Sunday the 30th of January we arrived at the Midvaal Race Track in Meyerton to compete in The New Fast One, which would also be our first Cat 1 race for the year. The Mr Price Vets Top Club team was represented by Werner Venter, Mike Viljoen, Andrew Reeves and I. I was nervous for this race as I quite enjoyed my 2010 year in the very well behaved VA batch. The thought of coming back to a bunch where it seems that you are racing between a bunch of hundred or so taxi drivers scared the crap out of me.

At 6h00 the Cat 1 race started and we were on the road with 24 other Top Club teams ranging from the professional teams like Bonitas (Previously Medscheme) to junior teams. I found that when racing in a huge bunch like this you cannot afford not to concentrate at all times, as everyone fights to get as close to the front as they can and there is movement in the bunch all the time. Returning from a seven day break off the bike and only four days of riding after that, I could not help but take a back seat in the race, as I found my intensity levels were down the drain. The whole bunch pretty much stayed together until we reach the 50km mark on the R42 where a huge crash happened, which probably split the bunch in about half. Lucky for me I was just able to avoid it, unfortunately Werner was caught up behind it and he had his own race from there. From there we turned left on to the R551 and then right into the R557 (Karee Kloof road). We went through Daleside village, turned left into Henley Drive and then right into Blougras Street. In about 5km we were out of the Henley village. Mike and I were guarding the back going through this corners section and it cost us dearly. Mike popped off and then I popped off on the corner where we turned left onto the R551. I just could not manage to sit a wheel to get back to the main bunch. I was gutted to see the bunch ride away and did the last couple of kilometres on my own to the finish. If I had been five positions forward in the bunch, I would have been there!

Andrew had an amazing ride and was positioned nicely near the front of the bunch throughout the whole race. Heading to the sprint finish he got on Jacques Fullard’s (Blackrock) wheel, but Jacques’ kick was just too much. It was the right wheel to try and sit though and that tactic pulled Andrew into 10th place overall and 2nd in the VA (30-39) category, which Jacques won.

This race was extremely fast with an average of 45km/h for the Category 1 bunch. With bunches this big you have to make use of the right hand lane of the road and when there is no road closure, it is a dangerous problem because of all the traffic. I hope there will be at least rolling road closure for the Category 1 bunch next year.

All in all it was a good race and we started the season with some great results, thanks to Andrew.

By Emile Fouché