Chch, round 2

After three seasons of physio during the week while back in the north island, My knee was feeling better but still not 100%. I was told it was ok to race as I wont do any more damage, its just about dealing with the pain. The race track was similar to last years track, with one big climb (changing pitch all the way to the top) and then a decent that wound its way down with open sweeping corners, tight corners, drops, rocks and the list goes on. An extension to the climb was added at the start of the lap this year with a couple little rocky sections to make life that little bit more challenging.
Race day and it decided to rain in the morning, After riding part of the climb in warm up I decided to change my tyres from the BARRO RACE to the AKA 2.2 as they are still a fast tyre but have a tad more knob to bite in on the climb.    For the first time in a very long time I was called up on the second row and with a short sprint into a hair pin I knew things would get interesting. I had an ok start and made my way up in to 2nd or 3rd but the time we hit the tight stuff, I was sitting in 3rd when we hit the main single track part of the climb dropping to 4th just before the top. I held 4th for the next couple laps while we pulled a large gap on the rest of the field. I was feeling ok, the knee was hurting a bit but I could push through it. About 1km from the end of the lap on lap 3 I hit a rock with the back wheel kicking the bike side ways and popping my foot out of the pedal and into my front wheel, as my foot entered the wheel it snapped half the spokes on one side of the wheel. This was enough to stop me and almost put me over the bars, my front wheel wouldnt turn through the fork so I had to push the bike on the back wheel for the rest of the lap. By the time I made it to the 80% area I had 8sec to pass or I would get pulled out of the race, as I didnt have a spare wheel in the tec zone I let the 8sec pass and that was my race over. The thing with being lapped out (instead of pulling out DNF) is I still get points.
The next day the guys in basic bikes fixed my wheel (all new spokes) I had a massage and we travelled up to Hanmer. After a play on the tracks it was off up to Nelson to get ready for the Nat champs this weekend.