The big news from last weekend was that Luke 'Limbo' Limbrick took home the Elite National Champs Jersey. This was a trully massive event, usually riding for in the Senior category he managed to step it big time and raced like a hero to beat the pro's at their game. In the final he had to fight hard with Pat Campbell Jenner as the lead swapped a number of times but Limbo wasnt having any of it at and held the lead at the finish taking the win. The crowd were on their feet screaming as the underdog thrashed it to the finish. Serious celebrations followed and a highly ecstatic looking Limbo was on the podium sending the Champagne corks flying.
Once again we had another very wet and windy weekend of 4X. This time up near Chester at Harthill. The track was an interesting one. It has the potential to be a really nice track but in my view it just falls short on the final touches. It is too narrow and encourages a single file procession and some of the lips and landings really aren't great at race pace. The short start straight lead into a 90 degree right hander which saw a serious number of collisions. One line leaving this corner and no room previously to separate the riders created a lot of four rider pileups and some heavy crashes. The track is very sandy and so the corners are super loose both in the dry and the wet which was a lot of fun to ride and livened up the racing with plenty of crashes. There was also a gusty cross wind to contend with down the pro line. A lot of riders were having their wheels blown out from under them over the second pro jump. It was clearly the quicker route but a heavy gamble due to the changeable weather conditions. The track and conditions came together for some real crash heavy racing. By far the most crashes of the season took place on this track which created some lively racing but not really for the right reasons.
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The national round went ok, in the motos I had a win two 2nds and 4th after Mop rudely took me down on the first corner. I was through to the quarters but this was it as I ate sand once again on the first corner taking me out of the comp. The national champs was a little more successful. I had a good qualifying run and made it through the first knockout round and then took 3rd place in my second knockout round leaving me in 20th place overall.
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The champs race was massively competitive and action packed. The Semis saw Will Evans take out both Nate Parsons and Jake Ward in the first turn. The finals followed and Scot Roberts and Scott Beaumont came together in the first turn leaving Luke Limbrick and Pat Campbell to fight it out for the top places. Somewhere through the proceedings Isaac was taken down on the first straight catapulted through the air using his head to smash through a marker post and bring him to a stop. Jono Jones held it all the way to the last rollers before choosing to throw himself over the bars and across the line. Dowie and a few of the other big guns were sent to the floor on the pro line along with many others during racing. There really was too much of this camera pleasing action to comment on, unfortunately most of the camera men were hiding this round. Duncan Philpott was out representing the togs and has put together a few awesome videos of both the racing and the shockingly sunny pumptrack challenge which went down on the Saturday night.
Another good weekends racing, with any luck the next round down in the south west will be a warm sunny event where we can stick on some fast tyres and see some rapid, dry racing, my fingers are crossed!
Thursday, 21 July 2011
Harthill NPS and National Champs
Wednesday, 18 July 2007
Rheola National Champs
What can I say but bit of an epic weekend. Driving back up to wales was an event in itself, torrential rain most of the way set the scene for the rest of the weekend. So far this season all the races have been dry hot dusty tracks, personally I prefer the challenge of a wet greasy track its what UK downhill is about, Rheola is always a washout! The forecast had issued a severe weather warning for Wales with persistent and thundery rain. I was feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement. Swansea got a bit frantic, I was trying to get a hardtail sorted out for the race, unfortunately mine hadn't arrived due to the postal strike, after a bit of blagging, trying to mix and match bits from a few different bikes and several trips to the bike shop it turned out even my bodging skills weren't up to the task, eventually decided to swap to the open category and ride the full suss.
Seeding runs took place on the Saturday. Rheola is definitely a gnarly track and more than worthy of holding the National Champs, Julian and Jason have done a great job of getting it ready for the weekend. The top section is flat out loose drifty rock then lower down there are tight channels between trees, huge numbers of roots, the infamous star wars section and a fair bit of welsh slimy mud. Definitely a scary track to ride. My Seeding run was super fun, I was riding really ragged and blowing most corners but it did put a huge grin on my face. I ended up going over the bars at star wars then again off the bridge jump landing too far to the left in some real soft mud and almost taking out a few spectators. Dumping the bike and grabbing the camera I legged it back to the track to catch the fast guys go down. Got there to hear Jason on the mic saying that racing was stopped due to an injured rider, who was most likely Jack Malone or Alex Roberts, the 2 guys I had come with from Swansea. It turned out the had both had mechanicals but didn't find out until after running up the track to check if they were ok. Watching the star wars section was mental, the speed that the pros hit this section was scary, very few riders looked in control. There was also a good crowd providing a bit of friendly abuse and amping up the atmosphere. Last rider down was Steve Peat looking super quick coming in but he came unstuck on the first lot of roots dabbing and getting pitched over the bars straight towards my camera. First thing he said was "f*@k Ive done my ankle" it was clear to see it wasn't pointing in the right direction. From what Ive heard it was a rare dislocation and nothing was actually broken. I hope he has a quick recovery and wish him all luck in getting back on it by the world champs.
Sunday was very wet, after me and Alex eventually got bullied out of the car by Julian and Jack I had 3 real fun practice runs. The track was running a lot nicer but it was too wet to be able to see much of it! After Saturday and with the thought of a holiday in france in less than a week, the aim was to get down in one piece. I managed to stay upright the whole race run but probably took it too easy, I only gained 10 seconds on qualifying which was pretty disappointing especially when this meant I was at the bottom of the open cat. Congrats to Julian taking the win in the masters, I watched him leave the start a few times and he was absolutely charging plus he managed to have a mental grin on his face all weekend, inspiring. Marc Beaumont ended up taking the win in senior and Tracy Moseley claimed it for the women.
Cheers to Jason putting on a great event, everything was really slick and the best uplifts Ive experienced at a race yet.