The idea of a 4 hour MTBO event was raised many months ago. We were looking for an area with two maps side by side with a nice central start/finish area. The Darlimurla/Mirboo North area was suggested and given the success of last Sunday's event it seems to have been the perfect venue.

The forecast stinking hot weather for Saturday did not eventuate and some nice rain fell in the evening to fill the puddles and dampen the already sandy tracks. Sunday turned out to be fine for riding with warm sunny breaks and some cloud cover.

The small Darlimurla Hall was soon buzzing with activity as riders registered, filled in tickets for the prize draws and investigated various map boards for sale or hire. At 9.45, 81 riders lined up for the inaugural event briefing and at 10am they had their maps and were underway. The challenge - visit as many of the 40 controls on the two maps and score as many points as possible - 2400 potentially. Rutted single track, steep climbs, gentle rail trail, forest tracks and bitumen roads all proved viable route choices for the eager competitors.

Meanwhile back at base, our challenge was to prepare as many cheese toasties as possible and have them ready for hungry riders in 4 hours time.

Some riders returned to the central area to refuel during the 4 hours while others took advantage of the Mirboo North coffee shop on the edge of the map. Others rode hard without rest to maximise their score and beat the 2pm cut-off time. One very keen rider even rushed through the finish line at 1pm, unaware they had another hour to go. So out they went again.

The anticipated 2pm rush occurred and the finish line crew worked like a team to record times and penalty points and calculate results while tired, dusty, muddy and hungry riders ate cheese toasties and sausages as they compared stories from the day.

Alex Randall rode superbly to be the only competitor to score the maximum 2400 points - with 16 minutes to spare. A fantastic effort. Alex was clearly the outright winner and also took out the solo male section. Kath Copland rode extremely well to win the solo womens section with a very creditable 1800 points.

Anitra Dowling won the Solo Veteran Female class with 1120 points and special mention must go to Rick Armstrong who won the Solo Veteran Male section with 1720 points after travelling all the way from Albury for the event.

Other section winners were: Female Pairs - Anna Jones/Lisa Strain
Male Pairs - Bruce Paterson/Paul Leicester
Mixed Pairs - Todd Houghton/Kathryn Ewels

The results also show the number of visits to each control. Nearly everyone visited control 21, but it was very quiet at control 11 with only 6 visits for the day.

One of the reasons for running an event like this one is the expand the reaches of MTBO and encourage other riders from other disciplines to have a go. It was great to see so many new faces at this event and we hope that these new riders enjoyed themselves and continue to participate in some MTBO events.

Finally, a few thankyous:
- Grand Ridge Plantations and DSE for permission to run the event on their land
- Wild Horizons for the Polaris Challenge entry
- Maximum Adventure for the Kathmandu Adventure Race entry
- Mallard Cycles for the tubes and bidons
- Our families for the great help and support leading up to the event and on the day.

Peter Cusworth and Tony Clark