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Specialized Super Series - Round 3
Hopton Castle
Writers: James - 20th March 2004
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From the Friday before the race I knew it was gonna be bad conditions, the weather forecast predicted gale force winds and very heavy rain. And on the journey throught Craven Arms it absolutely poured with rain. Fortunately when we had got through all the country roads and eventually found the venue, we were pleasantly surprised to find a very good turnout of cars all up the access road and covering the field in 4 rows.
The final of the Winter Series was today, and the Summer Series #1 on the sunday.
The course consisted of the usual Hopton mix of tight corners and slippery roots, made even worse by the lashing rain and gale force winds.
Once into the woods off the start (if you made it without getting blown off course first!), the course was riding slow, with most riders keeping it pretty pinned and out across the first fire road and then into the first really rooty section. The mud made the roots incredibly slippery, and caused a lot of people problems.
The bottom part of the track was on the old Nationals course, after the fireroad crossing came a long winding section with many berms and slowed a lot of riders down, then came two quick jumps and then down into the bottom section, a steep drop-off and then some quick berms into a very wide corner and over a small double onto the finish jump and the race around to the finish.
The course was super muddy, in most sections it was thin enough not to cause too many slowing down problems but at the lower section of the course it got very gloopy, particularily around the jumps.
One thing that showed was you dont just need to be good at riding a bike to be a dahnhilla, you gotta be good at driving too, the car park might as well have been ice!
As again, Pearce Cycles managed to organise another great day and somehow stop the tents and finish paddock from flying away across Wales!
Unfortunately I wasnt there at the second day but I will post results for it when I have them.
Results here
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