Photos from the actual day at Cessnock to come — these are stand-ins for now.
An interesting day for Povo Racing. Returned to the site of our origin story for the first time in a couple of years. Cessnock is one of Max’s favourite tracks, and he’d been manifesting speed all week in preparation.
It worked — but he managed to manifest two big crashes as well.
The track was sodden, greasy mud all morning. The cruiser wheel spun half the way through the car park, and just walking took concentration to avoid going arse over tit. There was one part of the track behind the dam that bikes were literally getting stuck in during practice, needing multiple people and a lot of effort to extract. Max was nervous, and needed carefully selected music to get in the zone.
MX1, round one
It worked. He didn’t get a great jump off the gate, but rounded up three or four riders by turn 1 and another couple through turn 2. He looked fast right from the start. Everyone was struggling with traction, and he lost his first tear-off at turn 3 because it was already caked in mud. Big power slides and snaking all over the place up the hills under power — but he kept hauling riders in and passing them one after another. Maybe another six or eight, plus a couple in front crashed, and by lap 3 he was mid-pack and flying.
On lap four he came through the mud near the dam at speed. He doesn’t know exactly what happened, but the front just stopped, and he shot over the bars and landed nicely on the top of his head. No injuries — but he struggled to pick the bike up with his boots sinking 8 inches into the mud, and by the time he got going again he was cooked. A couple of corners later he crashed again from fatigue. Remarkably, he still finished in front of three or four riders.
The track dried out as the day went on, and Max hadn’t ridden like this in years. Trying to describe it afterwards, the best word I had — beyond fast and aggressive — was that he was riding with intent.
MX1, round three
This was shaping up as his best ride of the day. Same story off the start — not great out of the gate, then fast. There’s one section with a big tabletop followed by a huge step-up that he’d struggled with all day because of deep ruts in the approach. Some bloke he was dicing with passed him through that exact section on lap 2.
Max didn’t like that much. On lap 3 he just sent it — cleared both easily. Much faster way through.
It looked good enough that I figured I’d film that section on lap 4. He came through the lead-up fast, no doubt he was about to attack it again. The tabletop was beautiful, perfect landing, extra pace — and he launched the step-up. For context: full-wick in third gear, which is somewhere around 64–80 km/h.
But this time he was further right on the jump face, and something was different about it. Front wheel high through the air. He said afterwards he wasn’t too worried at first, but did think “fuck, I’m pretty high.” He over-jumped it, it kept rotating, and he landed heavily back-wheel first — somehow giving it a handful of throttle at the same time — and the bike shot out from under him like a cannon.
He hit the deck sitting down and slid on his backside while the bike cartwheeled past him. Something bounced him back to his feet and into a run towards the bike, which nearly took out one of the marshals — who told Max afterwards, “that scared the shit out of me.”
I told him the getting-back-on-your-feet-while-sliding trick was pretty neat. At least he can crash like a pro.
He remounted, finished the race, and decided to sit out the final round of MX2. Two big crashes and no injuries is enough luck for one day — another one and he figured he’d probably get hurt.
The wrap-up
We came home pretty happy. Results weren’t great, but the pace is back, and he walked away from two genuinely big ones. The bike needs new bars and grips but otherwise seems fine — hard to tell under all the mud.
And I’m proud of Michelle Wood. We called on the way home, told her he’d had two big crashes, and she said: “is your bike ok?” Nothing could have made me happier. I’ll make a motorcyclist out of her yet.
I am the loser of the day, though. The video I mentioned above? Forgot to slide it into video mode. I have a photo of the moment I “started” filming, and one of the moment I finished. Both Max and Shell have pointed out that I had one job.