Turnworth Park- March 11th 2007

Travelling to the race I decided to take a short cut to save some time, typically, this led to me not being able to find the venue, until right in the nick of time we saw a pick-up with a dirt bike on the back, quick, follow it!
I did, and within 10 minutes we were there.
Plenty of room to park and nice weather, I was looking forward to it.

All the Track’n’trail events seem to be hugely popular, the entry list on this one was full, so a big sportsman’s field was guaranteed.
I just hoped this time after the fiasco of the sighting lap at their last event that it wasn’t going to happen again, it didn’t, so everything in order, I waited for the flag to drop to start racing.

Off we went then, I started about half way as we made our way through a short motocross section and into the woods, then stupidly of me I had a little ‘off’, the bike annoyingly wouldn’t budge from between the trees so I could kick it and get going again, and when I finally did, I was plum last, everyone had past me! (that pissed me right off), and with the tight wooded section that we were already into, overtaking was tough.

Quite a few riders were coming off or getting stuck on the roots, in fact, I think that this was (or if not) one of the most tree-rooted tracks that I’ve encountered so far, very tricky indeed.

Half way round was a cracking hill that you were able to blast up at speed before going back into the woods to face more roots (sometimes huge ones), and also a ‘bomb hole’ which made things interesting as well.

I made my pit stop ok at about half way and everything was going smoothly.
With about 30 minutes of the race left I misjudged a right handed turn while I was in the woods, SMACK! I hit a tree on my left hand side, my hand taking the full impact, my fingers had been the meat in the sandwich between the handlebars and the clutch lever.
I managed to stay on the bike but came to an abrupt halt thinking to myself that surely 1 or 2 of my fingers must be broken, I was in agony.
I didn’t bother taking off my glove because I didn’t want to see what might be underneath, so I waited for a minute or so, constantly clenching my fist and moving my fingers to make sure they still worked, and off I went.
Again the thought crossed my mind, I’m not long from a finish and I’ve come this far, so I ain’t going to DNF now.

The last couple of laps weren’t particularly pretty, I kept stalling it in the tight turns, because I a had a job holding on to the bars with my left hand, couldn’t operate the clutch properly.
I made it back ok to get a result, relieved!

Marie had to help me get changed as 2 of my fingers just wouldn’t work!
First the good news: Nothing was broken.
The bad news? My forefinger was a mess, it had swollen really badly and yet again I had another nail that was black and blue and bleeding. How the hell am I going to play guitar with that?
That’s racing I suppose!

Finishing position: 32/72
Bike status: ok
Injuries: forefinger badly bruised, nail coming off.