Today Manly Warringah Cycling Club held there final round of their cyclocross racing series. A great turnout considering the weather was far from favourable. Speaking to Rob Parbery from MWMTB club before the race, it was decided to remove the dreaded mud pit from the course to allow more racing rather than mud collecting, good choice in hindsight.
The turnouts for these events has been really impressive and today was no different. Plenty of families out to watch mum or dad race and even have a run down the track themselves. Great to see so many smiling kids outside playing rather than stuck at home in front of the TV or computer.
As for the photography, it was a very challenging day. When shooting at bigger events I usually setup in a location and stay put for the duration or in the 24hour events only move around every 3 hours or so. Today was challenging as I wanted to catch more editorial images and get a feel for the whole event. This meant setting up new shots every 15mins or so and changing lenses which is difficult while trying to hold or stay under an umbrella. At one point the clouds rolled in so thick it was almost black in the background of shots. The flashes had to be turned right down to minimize the “deer in the headlights” look. The Nikon D3s didn’t even notice the soaking it took, I was however, a little concerned about the PocketWizard TT1 and AC3 being tolerant of so much wet stuff. Great gear though, all is good.
So as everyone huddled around the marquee and cheared on the last few competitors and the lighting strikes got louder, the first MWCC and MWMTB cyclocross series came to an end. The club plans to run this event on a monthly basis starting in a few months time. I am sure they will have even better turn outs as cycclocross popularity grows and more and more people hear of the event. Look forward to shooting the coming races over 2012.
Thx
Gil.
