Hardtail DH Anyone?

Long time no post. Last weekend was round 4 of the SDA series up at Pitfichie waaay up north. With a split in the rim on my DH bike I was forced into taking the hardtail to race on. After grabbing the 8 inch rotors and a couple of 24 x 2.7" Highrollers the sidekick was in downhill mode. My first practice run saw me smash into a tree splitting the front brake hose, so I was left with just the rear for the rest of the weekend. A few more big offs and I quickly learnt which parts of the track I had to slow down on! Come race day and I was pretty confident with the track considering my bike also had about 4 gears at this point after some mech/rock interaction. Both my race runs were clean from start to finish which makes a change for my and I even managed to knock 10 seconds of my time on the second run. In the end I finished 40th, 47seconds slower than Ben Cortis who won senior. I wonder how much quicker I'd be on the full sus? Anyway expect a full report in issue 4 of wideopen.