Liam Renaut has been a busy boy over the past 6 months. As well as filming the entire 2011/12 National series over summer, he’s also spent time catching up with some of Australia’s fastest guns in the downhill scene today. Including two times Junior World Champion Troy Brosnan, current World Cup Series female leader Tracey Hannah riding for their new Hutchinson United Ride Team, plus Joey Vejvoda and Andrew Crimmins.

Below: Liam lines up the next shot while Troy, as usual, waiting to walk back up, gets a few breaths in. Although he is only 18 he’s pretty much a veteran of this routine now.

I was lucky enough to film with Liam for  Troy’s section on a local trail. Liam had his ideas sussed and it was cool to work with a young keen young filmmaker like him. I’m sure you’ll agree, he has the editing dialed in and as much as his filming.

During the shoot, since my video shots were setup and locked off on the tripod, I managed to take a few stills of Troy pinning it in his new kit, complete with the Aussie flag down one side, made after he took the title for Australian National Champion at Eagle Park in February. Best of luck to Troy during the world cup series this year.

The first round of the Inside line Mountain Bike Club downhill series kicked off at “Dazzleland” at Mt Torrens. What a great opening to the season. Ngari Jenkins, legendary downhill mountain biker who’s been riding since the last century takes his second elite win ever. Probably up there with when he beat Nathan Rennie to get through to the finals in the Dual Eliminator at Mt Buller in 1999.

With a comeback from local biking legend Steve Marsh and gun Pivot rider Will Rischbieth taking the world cup season off there was sure to be some very competitive action, despite a few of the younger Elite field being absent. Junior World Champion Troy Brosnan was busy at Sea Otter, Connor Fearon just had his tonsils out and Henry Blake had only just arrived back from the Junior Worlds DH camp the night before. Even with the young guys missing we still saw one of the biggest field of elite riders at an ILMTB round for a long time. Seeding times were pretty tight and it was great to see Marshy (pictured) hadn’t lost his touch, clocking in the fastest time for the morning session.

Marshy was happy with his run, but admitted he gave it his all and he’d find it hard to make much time up inn the finals. The Under 19’s class is looking good for 2012. During seeding the top 5 were all within just over a second of each other. James Chambers posting the fastest seeding time down followed closely by Matt Taylor and Sam Keogh. Admittedly Under 17 rider Callum Morrison (pictured), also posting times in 19’s pipped the field by more than 3 seconds.

Callum’s final time would have posted him 6th in the Elite men category. Needless to say, he won the Under 17s category by a three second margin ahead of Hayden van der Wolff in 2nd and Cody Barker in 3rd.

The under 15s class, saw little gun Matt Kelly stepping it up from Under 13s, and proving he’s been getting faster over summer  scoring a 1st place in front of long time rival Will Badger in 2nd and Thomas Matto in 3rd.

On to the final runs,  Jimmy Chambers (pictured above) who’s stepped up to the under 19 class with a number of others this season, scored a win on debut, followed very closely by Bryce Wing in 2nd and Sam Keogh in 3rd.

The big dogs were close as always, and it looked like Marshy was right about giving it his all in seeding, unfortunately, he went a bit slower rolling into 4th with a 1:38.600, just ahead of fellow Steven, Gebert in 5th, 1:38.770. Everyone’s favourite Ranga Simon Buzacott snapped up third – 1:38.030, big Will Rischbieth (pictured below) just missed out on the top spot by .03 with 1:37.820 behind long time rider Ngari Jenkins who just snapped up first in 1:37.790.

Aussies place well but Minnaar is on top at home

Greg Minnaar has smashed it on home soil in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa to take the win with a time of 3:57.980 at the first round of the 2012 UCI downhill World Cup season.

His first split time was up on Gwin and during the second section, looked smooth throughout in front of the home crowd, to make up 0.632 on the previous time and take the win ahead of Aaron Gwin. (3:58.612) Congrats to Sick Mick (3:58.974) in third, now riding with new team Hutchinson United Ride Team. A very pleasing site after the dangerous crash he had in the Pietermaritzburg World Cup race in 2011. This made it a double podium for the Hannah family, with younger sister Tracey on top of the womens podium earlier in the day. Britain’s Gee Atherton made fourth (3:59.283) and Canadian Steve Smith narrowly snuck into 5th ahead of Jared Graves by as little as .052.

Big congrats to Graves, who has been focusing on downhill racing again, after the 4x event was dropped from the UCI circuit last year. His strong result today, in 6th, proves he hasn’t lost touch at all and we all look forward to seeing him up on the podium again, during the season.  The other Aussies placing well, Troy Brosnan riding for Team Monster Energy Specialized, in 8th, an impressive placing,  considering the course is suited to the bigger riders. He’s been training hard during the off season and his result today looks like it’s paid off. Sam Hill, coming back from injury last season and having a very competitive Aussie National Series at home, toughing it out with teammate Brosnan, just missed out on the top ten in 11th (+5.836 back). Bryn Atkinson, also on the comeback trail after the horrendous injury he suffered last year, breaking his arm and leg, sidelining him for the entire 2011 season, finished up a very respectable 20th. Also a big congrats to Bryn’s partner in crime, Jill Kintner who is racing on the DH circuit this year and finished in a strong 4th. A very positive start to the season for them and their new team Norco International.

PLACING/UCI POINTS/OVERALL STANDING – AFTER DH ROUND 1 – Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

For all the highlights from Pietermaritzburg, go to Redbull.tv