Dragon
Series Abercarn Rnd 5 & 6 |
19th
and 20th June 2004 |
The Highs and Lows
of DH Racing |
| Abercarn was to be a rollercoaster of emotions as Paul May, Phil Mowatt, Greg Pickles (new development rider) and myself tried to tame the mountain. |
| Saturday was fantastic whether all day and the course was inches deep in dust as the dry weather baked the track, practice seem to go well as the team increased the pace throughout the morning. Rumours were floating around about some stocky fella on a 222 raggin the track at ridiculous speeds, this was later confirmed to be our very own Gummy (Paul May) who appeared to have the measure of the track. Phil and Greg were happy with practice as they started to smooth out the rough track and find the right lines showing me a clean pair of heals in the process. |
| I was riding like a Croatian
belly dancer on speed, the first race back from injury is always a bit shady
and this was no exception, the confidence was not there and I could not
summon the aggression needed.
Abercarn
is steep, and so pedalling was never really much of a requirement, this
allowed the lardy amongst us to stand a chance of keeping up with the
young slim jims. It is however very rocky and deep in dust giving most
riders more than enough to keep them busy. |
| Saturday race times were very close….other than the eventual winner in Masters which was the one and only Paul May, Gummy destroyed the competition with a time of 1:56, this was a faster time than even the Experts Category winner, a stonking result from the old nutcase! Phil placed a reasonable time of 2:13 not helped by head butting a tree in front of me in the final section, Phil was confident there was much more in the tank but suffered a flat in run 2 which put paid to that. Greg suffered a crash in run 1 but still seemed to be around Phil’s pace in between sections, so much was hoped for run 2 where he delivered the goods returning a great time for a development rider of 2:11, not a bad start chap! |
 |
Phil playing in
the dust |
| I continued to ride with zero confidence producing a pants result of 16th with 2:14, both runs were clean and tidy and it was all about building confidence so little was expected from me. |
| Sunday saw the bar raised higher with some ridiculous times being achieved, my nerves grew as I put pressure on myself to pull my socks up, Phil and Greg were starting to get the measure of the course and Gummy continued in a league of his own until disaster struck……Phil and me were taking a look at a steep, dusty, and slippy left hander which needed to be taken with some degree of respect, then we saw Gummy flying into view at what can only be described as a ludicrous speed, I held my head as he turned in to the bend when both tyres broke away at high speed, Gummy was down and down hard, I ran over to see if he was alright, but in true downhill fashion he claimed to be okay. Although he was shaken he appeared to have got away lightly, we finished our practice run only to find he’d been carted off to A&E with a broken collar bone…….Gummy claims he didn’t miss the braking point and that was his normal entry speed to this section, if it was, then I may as well give up now? |
 |
Gummy's armless
really! |
| Greg picked up a puncture at the top of the course in run 1 but amazingly still produced a time of 2:13, things were less fraught on run 2 where he notched up a cracking time of 2:09, looks like Phil will have to be keeping an eye on what’s behind him in the Seniors category as well as looking forward to the boys at the front! Phil continued his progress and improved again with a time of 2:07 on run 1 with one or two small errors, he struggled to improve on this and only shaved 100th of a second off for run 2 showing both speed and consistency, he is improving gradually race by race and this shows in his face as his confidence grows. |
 |
New boy in town
- Development Rider Greg Pickles |
| I was not looking forward to run 1 after crashing hard on my bad leg on my last practice run, however, this didn’t seem to affect me as I produced a reasonable time of 2:10 with very few errors, this was some 5 seconds faster than Saturdays time so I was pleased….but not ecstatic you understand. As I was only a few seconds off the my old pace I felt I was taking far too many risks for this stage of my recovery, so I decided to skip run 2 not wishing to push my luck any further. Probably the first sensible decision I’ve ever made at the races but the right one I think, I must be getting old! |
| Well there you have it…..one convincing podium and a broken collar bone all in one weekend by one team rider, Gummy may have put paid to his chances of a good result in the one off National Championship race at Fort William in 4 weeks time, although he’s convincing himself he’ll be fit by then, maybe we’re not so different after all…..the highs and lows of racing eh? |
| Bala is the next battlefield, bring it on....... |