At the start of the day Mum and I went to John Lawtons so he could fix my back brake. We got to the event via the Paekakariki Hill Road which has an amazing view.

Mum and I only just got to the event in time to sign on and get the bikes out of the van. The event was at Glover’s. Mum said we’d been there before but I couldn’t remember.

Section 7 was slightly out of the norm but was a really cool idea. It was a hill climb but instead of the normal flags they’d put numbers ranging from 3 to 0 in diferent colours for the various grades.

Emily is a relatively new rider but on her first attempt she got to the blue zero. The thrill of achievement quickly turned to concern as she realized that she then had to get back down.

At the start of the day, on section 3, a new guy (who I think Mark Sidebotham bought along) had quite a big crash and got a footpeg in his leg.

On my second lap my front brake started playing up a bit but I wasn’t too worried until I got to section 6 where, at the start of the section, there was a fairly steep downhill and, half-way down, you had to do a sharp right corner to stay in the section. My front brakes decided it would be a good time to stop working so I ran into a tree instead of making the corner. When we got back to the van Mark Sidebotham fixed my brake for me.

At the end of the day I finished just behind Mark, which was fair, since he’d fixed my bike.