RapidRacers NPS race report

National Points Series Final

Caersws Rnd 5

25th and 26th September 2004

Team RapidRacers taking home the spoils

So here we are at the Final round of the National Points Series for 2004, this is the series every self respecting racer wants to do well at. The RapidRacers team travel to Caersws to put the dissapointing last round to the back of their mind. It was all hanging in the balance.......Gummy (Paul May) was in with a shout of the overall series title, and Stefan Gleed was sitting in 4th after a dismal round at Combe Sydenham, 3rd was a realistic chance but he needed to pull out something special out of the bag. I could feel the pressure building although everyone was putting on a brave face and claiming "I'm only riding for fun so there's no pressure".....yeah right! Any bourne racer is naturaly competitive by nature, why else would we ride so hard that you struggle to stand at the finish? Bravado aside I was desperately trying not to put the team under pressure and stay positive as they had enough to deal with, not easy when you want the results as badly as they do.

Stefan Gleed, Paul May, Phil Mowatt, Greg Pickles, Paul Mackie and myself travelled to Wales once more to put the lid on a fantastic season......with the Masters points so close even your seeding run was crucial as this carried points as well as your one and only race run..

Caersws is not a big hill but it is very steep in sections, extremely challenging in the dry, and virtuall imposible to ride well in the wet....I was holding a personal vigil praying to the rain god to s*d off! This track always claims it's casulaties and this weekend was no exception, the main reason is you race fast through tight woods and any mistake even a minor one can leave you bouncing off trees like a pinball.

Saturday

Saturday was generall dry with the odd spot of rain which didn't have that much of an affect, the team practiced hard and Stef, Phil and Gummy seemed to be riding superbly. It was time for qualifying so we made our way to the start. We watched Phil as he nailed the jumps and doubles at the top of the course with ease a momentum he carried to the finish, Phil qualified well up the order and I predicted a good result from him, this course suited his "never on the ground" style. I started off well and felt pretty good making only a few minor errors in the slippy woods, it was going well until the steep transfer near the finish where I tried desperately to dent the floor with my body, I fumbled to untangle my bike from my body and remounted to the cheers of the croud who were most impressed with the entertainment. I qualified well down the order and set about drowning my sorrows after yet another painful crash! Stef set off with confidence but he made a few errors in the slippy off camber sections in the woods, the two run ins with tree's didn't do too much damage as he still qualified in 5th with a time of 3:04, taking into account the crashes a clean run was looking like a pretty tasty time. Gummy also had a few moments in the woods and found himself having to push hard to try and make back the lost time, he needed to beat Simon Foland to ease the pressure on his final run. He crossed the line in 3:00 which is a very fast time but was it fast enough to take the seading point? Simon crossed the line 2 seconds faster to take the fastest qualifying time. Greg and Paul Mackie had a handful of incidents and crashes between them, both were disapointed with their qualifying times as was I, this left it all to do for the team in the final run.

Phil on the ground - very rare!

Sunday

Sunday came and time for 3 or 4 practice runs before the one timed run..........practice was a mixture of fast edrenaline runs and big crashes as the mistakes crept in. Stef's final practice run resulted in 2 big crashes including him re-arranging his manhood after slipping a pedal on the take off to a jump....ouch! My 2nd run was mint proving to me that I had at last got the measure of this challenging track, then my 3rd and final practice run scared me half to death as I had some high speed moments to forget....I got to the bottom and chose to sit out any more practice to reflect on my near death experiences. Paul Mackie was riding his recently built Cove Peeler, and when I say recent I mean the night before.....a failure with his shifter had the team rallying around fixing it as he was late for his final run.

Should I being going right or left?

Race Time

To the racing............the course had dried out and so the racing was even faster than practice. Greg was off first, he had a small crash in the woods but nailed most of the rest of the course with only a few minor mistakes, we saw him enter the finishing field pedalling like a maniac all the way to the finish line....Greg was in the hot seat for a while with a time of 3:07...a momentary taste of glory and he was well chuffed and so he should be. A couple of riders later and Paul Mackie then entered the finish arena and crossed the line with a great time of 3:09 leaving Greg still in the hot seat. That's both Development riders with a time 13 to 15 seconds faster than my qualifying time.....oh dear, no pressure then?

Stef raggin it....

Next up was Phil.....although he made a few minor mistakes his run was pretty spot on, he ruled on the top section and outjumped many of the expert riders, I have predicted all year that he was going to come back from his 2 year injury very strong and he proved me right.....but what was his time? An amazing 2:57 which saw him take 10th spot, sh*t the bed! I couldn't be happier for him, the kid has great talent and bags of bike control, all he needed was time in the seat and a good team around him. Next up is the Crash Master extraordinaire, I took a deep breath on the start line in anticipation of a world of pain which seems to be the norm of late. I negotiated the slippy woods fairly well keeping it pretty tidy, not earthshatteringly fast but enough to keep me from chomping on bark, the second set of woods I made quite a bit of time up nailing the tight sections as fast as I had all weekend. The step up was always going to be a messy affair and my final run was no exception, although it felt okay reports were coming in that I hooked up the rear so badly it measured 9.3 on the richter scale. I was a little too cautious for the rest of my run as I tried not to repeat any moments I'd had in practice, amazingly I got to the bottom intact. I crossed the line on the same time as the man in the hot seat, I actually manage a cleanish run, no crashes, no medics, and no major moments.....RESULT. I managed a 3:04 which to be honest I was well pleased with clean, tidy, and uninjured....now that's something you don't here me saying often.

Phil - normal service resumed!

Stef was up next and so we all waited in the finish arena to watch him cross the line, we all held our breath as he came into the finish arena, it was definately fast but was it fast enough to take the win.......he crossed the line with an incredible time of 2:50 taking the hot seat with ease. He still had a small problem in the woods with them god forsaken tree's, but apparently he then through caution to the wind in a bid to pull the lost time back. The next few riders came and went leaving Stef still in the hot seat....next up was Gummy......again Gummy had issues in the woods but by now this was accepted as read given their condition, he came blistering into view flying over the jumps and pedalling like his life depended on the result....he crossed the line in 2:49 a split second faster than Stef and took the hot seat with only one rider to go, yet another consistent ride from Gummy.....were we going to get our third one two of the series? The only man left that could upset the apple cart was Symon Folland the fastest qualifier, Gummy and Stef have been battling hard with Symon all year....he came into view and looked worryingly fast over the jumps, I glanced at the time and it looked like it was going to be extremely close.....he crossed the line in 2:49 splitting Stef and Gummy....how close is that? Gummy takes the win and Stef takes 3rd, another staggering team result in a highly competitive category......champers anyone?

The scores were being calculated for the overall series results, we knew Gummy had taken silver with his overall 2nd position, but there was some confusion over whether Stef was 3rd and on the podium or whether John Finney had taken it, we had no idea until it was announced......"Paul May is in 2nd place and Stefan Gleed is in 3rd"......a great moment as we took 2 of the 3 Series podiums as well as 2 race podiums.....life just doesn't get any better than that.

Paul May & Stefan Gleed take series podiums

We are now looking into renting storage space for Gummy and Stef to store all their trophies!!! Although there is the final round of the Midland Series at Radnor to come, this felt like the end of the season for us as the Nationals is the big one, and to some the only one that counts. Team RapidRacers put on a great showing in it's first year demonstrating resiliance and commitment even when things didn't go our way.....good team spirit and a collection of very supportive sponsors have given us a year to remember....special thanks to all our sponsors who have supported the team this year.