All Bank Holidays should be like that; sunny and a weekend of racing action!

Dragon Round 1 was the first proper DH race of the 2007 season. As usual, Jason had organised a tightly run ship for this Dragon event with uplifts and start times running like clocklwork, despite forced changes on uplift regulations. The format of the Dragons has also changed for 2007, with Saturday being a free practise day, with a chainless seeding run last up and Sunday is race day with the best of two timed runs.

Mackie's new Socom and 888 WC forks

Following some good results at the end of 2006, I was motivated about the 2007 season, however injury and illness has severely curtailed my preparations and I hadn’t been out on the bike nearly as much as I’d have liked. Yeah, that’s right, I’m getting my excuses in now!

However, getting a good result in Masters this year is going to be harder than ever. Many new riders have ‘matured’ from Senior Cat, and some familiar faces have decided to make a reappearance on the scene. In fact at the end of this weekend, 3 seconds separated places 4th – 14th! Good, tight racing. There was also 60 riders in Masters Category for this inaugural 2007 Dragon race – surely that has got to be a record?

Due to some frames not arriving, the race being fully booked, and other various reasons, I was the only RapidRacer in attendance at this round. However, I have made the Dragon Series my main focus for this season.

To the racing…

Abercarn, for those that are familiar with it, it’s a short, tight, steep, technical course with lots of shoots, gullies and berms. For this weekend, it was also very dusty. The actual route of the course was identical to last year, however much of the stones and loose material was brushed aside over the duration of the weekend, leaving a distinct racing line.

This was also my first competitive outing on my new Intense Socom. Having done a few practise sessions with it, I feel very at one with it now. Although I still need to dial the rear shock in (a cry for help Mr Garland!), the handling on the bike is spot on. The course was very well suited to the nimble handling of the Socom, and it did not fail. However, because of the steep nature of Abercarn I could not exploit the excellent pedalling performance of my new machine. Damn – I had to rely on bike handling skills! Abercarn has always been a track I’ve struggled on for some reason. There aren’t many genuinely scary sections, however you often find yourself braking when you don’t need to. This is a course for the fearless – the less braking you can do, the quicker your time!

At the end of Saturday and after several mechanical issues (mainly my fault as a hopeless mechanic), it was time for the chainless seeding run. This was a novel idea for the Dragon 2007 Series, and something that I approved of, although not everyone shared my view. Strangely enough I found myself riding certain sections quicker than with a chain – as I was conscious to maintain momentum. This was a real education, and something that I feel will help Dragon racers progress their skills. I was reasonably happy with my 12th position in the chainless (as I tend to rely on pedalling and tin-ribs acceleration to get me out of trouble), but my new sparing partner Ben Greenland managed to top the Masters pile with an impressive time of 1:57 – good going fella! Do we need a new Devo’ rider Team Manager?

Proper racing… The course was bone dry again, for a glorious Easter Sunday drenched in Welsh sunshine! Times were on average about 5% quicker than last year on an identical course.

My first run was ok, with too much feathering of the brakes in sections I should really have let go. A time of 2:00 dead was ok for 13th position. With plenty of scope to improve upon in my second run, I pretty much nailed every section how I wanted, to go sub 2 minutes and post 1:58. Pretty chuffed, but because of the close nature of the field, it was only good enough for 11th place. A mention for my new riding buddy Ben Greenland who got his best ever result of 4th place with 1:56. Ben is relatively new to DH and we’ve been training throughout the winter – I taught him everything he knows!!!!!!!!!

If this race is anything to go by, then the racing margins this season are going to be very small. A slip of a pedal here, a missed braking point there, and fractions of a second are going to cost plenty of positions. 4 seconds quicker and I’d have got a podium – but then 8 other guys are thinking that too!

Mountain Ash next up – a pedally course: BRING IT ON!