BDS Hopton - Round 6 at Hopton, Shropshire
Well if BDS finals history repeats its self then I will be injured by mid afternoon Saturday and having to do my seeding and race runs in pain. 2015 I arrived at the final round in 4th place but with a good chance of getting 3rd. I had a crash after 4 or 5 runs which resulted in a cut to my Elbow that the paramedics were struggling to stop bleeding.
It wasn't a nasty cut it was tiny but deep, my arm was bandaged tightly and straight so that was the end of practice for me that day. Despite my arm and hand swelling up badly and rather painful, I did just about manage to race and collected my third place in the championship only to find out the day after I had broken my Elbow. In 2016 I entered the final round in first place but it wasn't safe, points were tight, on my final practice run on the Saturday I made a silly mistake causing me to go down. I can't remember exactly what happened but as I hit the ground the bars dug so deeply into my hand it forced my thumb backwards, I woke up Sunday morning with a massive swollen Elephant hand. I could barely bend my fingers never mind hold onto my bars, but again I don't know how but not only did I manage to race I went on to win the championship.
This year I entered the finals in second place, too far off for me to catch first, but third was hot on my tail, I was taking no chances and wanted to actually make it through practice and race runs crash and injury free.
Friday Track Walk
Not sure why Hopton was selected for a Nationals race as it's a little bit on the flat side, track walk came and went. I have raced most of the track previously but the last section finish was slightly different. Nothing much had changed from before and no big features to worry about, just time to chill and get an early night.
Saturday Practice
We were woken up several times though the early hours with the heavy rain on the Caravan roof and it was still raining a little when I got up at 7.30. I double checked the weather forecast as last time I looked it didn't mention rain until, possibly showers late Sunday afternoon. The forecast was still the same, so I guess the weather man got it wrong again. Eventually I headed up for my first run around 10am, no real rush as its a short track with a quick uplift so its easy to get plenty of runs in.
1st run down was a little interesting, it was very greasy off the start and slow rolling. On the steeper tracks you can afford to lose a little momentum as gravity soon gets you back up to speed, but here it was all about keeping the flow going and not stalling out. I did have a bit of a sideways moment on a off camber root section but kept her upright.... just. Second time round I decided to take a closer inspection of the roots in fact too close and ended up face down in them, luckily no damage to me or the bike. While I was there I watched a few riders through and studied the line options, there were lines that worked and lines that definitely didn't and were catching a lot of riders out as they were upping their speed. The rest of the day was relatively incident free as per my plan, just trying to get to grips with the track and find a little speed.
Sunday Practice
I put in 3 runs not wanting to tire myself out, as with the track being fairly flat it was all about the pedalling and not the technicality of the track. I did enough to get myself fired up and the adrenaline flowing for seeding runs.
Seeding run
I seemed to get well off the start, there were a couple of sections I felt I didn't flow as well as I had in practice and didn't carry the speed through. But it was incident free and this put me in 4th place not as good as I hoped, but it was only seeding and I knew I had more to give.
Race Run
Off the start, I was so focused on making up time that 2 corners in I missed my line. I didn't panic as that (shorter) line didn't appear till half way through practice anyway, so I had practiced the slightly longer line but it meant instead of gaining seconds I just lost some. Still trying to push hard through the top greasy flat section I got carried away though the big open root section and again missed my line, forcing me to a longer lower one and resulted in an uphill pedal to get back onto the main line.
After this I seemed to find my flow and settle into the steeper more technical part of the track. Despite my mistake I managed to go a fraction of a second faster than in seeding but I finished the race in 5th. I was happy with that, my aim for the weekend was to stay injury free and focus on keeping my second place in the championship which I had done.
Championship result 2nd overall
Race Result - 5th
