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Pearce Cycles Winter Series - Round One
Hopton
James - 21st January 2007
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Another years racing gone by, one race worth of dust and we're back to the mud, dark nights and hail of a usual winter series.
Couldnt have really picked a better weekend for the first round of the midlands winter series, it started snowing on the way there and there was a flood just trying to get into the field.
Hopton is a solid event on the calendar, having been a long established downhill venue the tracks are well known, some love the roots and endless stumps and others cant stand them.. but they make for good, varied racing.
No changes to the course this race, usual top section we all love.. it was only in the open that we had a few course changes due to an entire line of trees being blown down in the storms.. and a few looking like they were gonna go while we were there..
Over the fireroad then drop into the second open section and this is where the mud really hit you, trying to slide you off line and a few succumbed to the ruts in corners. A long punishing straight right at the end made sure you were firmly sick of pedalling and over the line.. fast boys made this around 3mins 15 secs.
First up were the hardtails, and for a track like Hopton they were flying with Joe Bowman netting a 3:47 - fast enough to get himself high on most of the categories! Juvenile were pretty rapid, given that most bikes are too big - Sam Petford took the win with a 4:14 leaving Tom Phillips and Alex Glass to collect second and third.
Youth was rounded up by Gareth Brewin of Descent-World with ExtremeMedics (sexy landrovers anyone?!) Bernard Kerr and MuddyFox's Harry Molloy respectively. Junior was tight racing, with just 0.7 of a second between Sam Dale (Solid/Electric) and Joseph Smith (Ancillotti UK) leaving Bradley Shields confused 11 seconds behind second!
The Vets will bore you with their war stories, but can still pack a punch on a bike.. Trevor Harvey taking the win ahead of Seb Ramsey and Jono Simpson.
Burgtec are one of the sponsors for this series and Richard Burgoin showed the masters just how its done with two 3:33 times! Pretty consistent i'd say. Alun Lewis (AW Cycles) and Colin Williams (mtb-direct.co.uk) had just .5 of a second between second and third, but thats how racing is now.. fractions of a second count! That one pedal stroke or curry the night before makes a hell of a difference when racings this tight!
Have all the women ran away with the cold? Only five turned up, Emily Horridge was delighted with 1st in the Elites, except she was the only one racing.. Aimee Dix was the fastest woman down the course and Sue Mahony coming 2nd in Senior and Rachel Lewis netting third. Janet Clarke was all on her own in the masters, first place to you!
Senior men this weekend was huge and hotly contested, Craig Griffiths (Brooks Cycles) took the win with Tim Pearson (nocycling.com) and Adam Taylor (mtb-direct.co.uk) just trailing behind. Expert was a similar result, Adam Brayton taking the win with a 3:15, a time which would have happily dropped him in second in Elite. One half of the rapid Morgan brothers, Ben in second and Jason Davies in third.
Tom Braithwaite of Giant took the win for Elite by a storming 5 seconds with a 3:11, leaving Robert Smith (Electric/TitaniumRacing/Airbrush) and Ralph Jones of Dirt Magazine in his muddy trails.
The big controversy of the race was the uplift, stories of scratched paint, brake hoses pulled out, and gouges taken out of stanchions was a bit much.. are people going to race when their rig gets abused on the way up? Its not a problem with Pearce, do the FC really expect riders to stand for this nonsense? They need to have a serious rethink of their 'regulations' because people dont like seeing their shiny new bikes broken by the time they get up the hill. Lets hope things get sorted soon!
But never the less, it doesnt seem to have made a difference to numbers, race two is already full and race three has only fifty places left at the time of writing! Look out at the next race, my new camera should arrive soon so i'll be snapping at much higher quality!
Check out Pearce Cycles for results and news of uplift days!
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