It was an early start as I met up with Adam Blake & Nick Tremlett (who’d come along to watch for the day) for the drive up to near Blandford for SCEC event. With not much rain for the last couple of weeks I was guessing that we’d be having another dry event, and the weather again today was hot and humid, no sunshine to speak of, but still warm.
The conversation in the van on the way up was mostly from Nick and it soon turned out that he’s got his own catchphrase, this being ’What I need is’, that was repeated on countless occasions time and time again due to the subject he was talking about, this being members of the opposite sex which certainly kept me and Adam amused!!
So we arrived at Shillingstone and immediately clapped eyes on Andy Smith and Phil Harris (both of whom had made the trip up from our neck of the woods) and managed to get parked in front of um. This was no mean feat as the parking was bumper to bumper along the narrow forest roads. War was about to break out as the battle of the cc’s reared it’s head, me and Adam on the little 125’s, Andy and Phil both on 300’s, it was gonna be interesting to see how we all got on today.
Upon signing on I finally managed to catch up with Steve Jose who I’d hadn’t seen for a while. I’ve been talking to Steve in the week who’d been round the course helping SCEC to get it ready, so I had a bit of an insight as to what to expect and Steve told me that it suit me a lot more than lasts weeks TnT event as this course was nearly all woods, got to say Steve, you were spot on mate!
So it was off down to start to line up and get ready for the off and today I was in the clubman E1 class and got lined up next to ‘Boycey’ from the adrenaline trip forum.
As the flag dropped and In the words of Victor Meldrew himself ‘I don’t believe it’, I got the holeshot again! that’s 2 weeks running! As I got away from everybody like a bolt of lightning as we went into the woods after the short straight. Now then, this was so different from lasts weeks race as I kept a tight line through the wooded trails and ended up in front of everybody as I got back to the transponders after the 1st lap still in 1st place.
Now for the course itself and what an awesome venue this is and right up my street. Loads of flowing wooded trails, roots, off cambers, 2 massive hills to climb, some steep winding downhills, a couple of fire roads, some rutted grassy straights and a really tight section which meandered up and down that basically just been cut through the brambles which was littered with broken trees and branches and stumps making it really slippery even in the dry. Given you had the choice with some logs to jump over as well along the way, it was a decent track and about 8 or so miles in length.
So onto lap 2 and I was still in front when I came to one of those big logs which I confidently tried to go over instead of taking the easy route and going round it. Oh bollocks I thought as I promptly got stuck on it and with some of the E1 class right up behind me, they took the easy route and went round me as I had to get off the bike and push it in order to get over the damn thing, so I lost a few places in the process and ended up 5th or 6th before I got going again.
That’s the thing I’m starting to notice now, if you’re running near the front there’s not much room for errors coz as soon as you make a mistake and lose even a minute, someone will overtake you and you’ll lose a place or two, still it’s nice to be at the front rather than the back!
Coming back to the lap scoring and where the transponders were, SCEC amazingly had a big TV screen in full view so as you swiped your wristband through the electronic scoring box, your name, class and position would come up instantly on the screen.
After laps 3 and 4 I was holding 5th and I knew riders would pit before me so I’d be able to make up a place or two if I kept pushing as I don’t usually pit until later, and sure enough on the lap I went in to get some fuel, I’d made my way up to 3rd. Now the chase was on for the 2 guys in front of me!
I had a couple of ‘offs’ one straight after the other on the tight slippery bramble section which cost me a bit of time, nothing drastic, but annoying all the same and when that happens it tends to knock you off your rhythm a bit just when everything is going along nicely. With about 30 mins left I passed another rider in my class and had made it up to 2nd, now I really had ’red mist’ in my eyes as I knew I didn’t have much time to try and get the win, probably only a lap, but try as I might and having another ‘off’ due to colliding with a back marker whist overtaking, I didn’t quite manage it.
Caught up with Steve Jose at the end for chat and I’m glad he rode and got his TM out of
retirement for the day, he should do it more often!
Adam had a cracking result 3rd in experts (on his little katoosh) and 6th overall, so we all got back to the van happy including Nick who enjoyed watching, but come on Nick it’s time to get that bike out mate and start up again yourself and get amongst it! You know you want to.
Apart from Nick’s smelly feet and his soon to be famous catchphrase ’what I need is’, a decent laugh was had by us all on the 3hr drive home. In fact Nick, ’what you need is’, some bloody ‘Odor eaters’ to tame your feet!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Odor-Eaters-Insoles-Ultra-Comfort-Pr/dp/B001DZVEQ0
Finishing position: 2/20 (clubman E1)
The conversation in the van on the way up was mostly from Nick and it soon turned out that he’s got his own catchphrase, this being ’What I need is’, that was repeated on countless occasions time and time again due to the subject he was talking about, this being members of the opposite sex which certainly kept me and Adam amused!!
So we arrived at Shillingstone and immediately clapped eyes on Andy Smith and Phil Harris (both of whom had made the trip up from our neck of the woods) and managed to get parked in front of um. This was no mean feat as the parking was bumper to bumper along the narrow forest roads. War was about to break out as the battle of the cc’s reared it’s head, me and Adam on the little 125’s, Andy and Phil both on 300’s, it was gonna be interesting to see how we all got on today.
Upon signing on I finally managed to catch up with Steve Jose who I’d hadn’t seen for a while. I’ve been talking to Steve in the week who’d been round the course helping SCEC to get it ready, so I had a bit of an insight as to what to expect and Steve told me that it suit me a lot more than lasts weeks TnT event as this course was nearly all woods, got to say Steve, you were spot on mate!
So it was off down to start to line up and get ready for the off and today I was in the clubman E1 class and got lined up next to ‘Boycey’ from the adrenaline trip forum.
As the flag dropped and In the words of Victor Meldrew himself ‘I don’t believe it’, I got the holeshot again! that’s 2 weeks running! As I got away from everybody like a bolt of lightning as we went into the woods after the short straight. Now then, this was so different from lasts weeks race as I kept a tight line through the wooded trails and ended up in front of everybody as I got back to the transponders after the 1st lap still in 1st place.
Now for the course itself and what an awesome venue this is and right up my street. Loads of flowing wooded trails, roots, off cambers, 2 massive hills to climb, some steep winding downhills, a couple of fire roads, some rutted grassy straights and a really tight section which meandered up and down that basically just been cut through the brambles which was littered with broken trees and branches and stumps making it really slippery even in the dry. Given you had the choice with some logs to jump over as well along the way, it was a decent track and about 8 or so miles in length.
So onto lap 2 and I was still in front when I came to one of those big logs which I confidently tried to go over instead of taking the easy route and going round it. Oh bollocks I thought as I promptly got stuck on it and with some of the E1 class right up behind me, they took the easy route and went round me as I had to get off the bike and push it in order to get over the damn thing, so I lost a few places in the process and ended up 5th or 6th before I got going again.
That’s the thing I’m starting to notice now, if you’re running near the front there’s not much room for errors coz as soon as you make a mistake and lose even a minute, someone will overtake you and you’ll lose a place or two, still it’s nice to be at the front rather than the back!
Coming back to the lap scoring and where the transponders were, SCEC amazingly had a big TV screen in full view so as you swiped your wristband through the electronic scoring box, your name, class and position would come up instantly on the screen.
After laps 3 and 4 I was holding 5th and I knew riders would pit before me so I’d be able to make up a place or two if I kept pushing as I don’t usually pit until later, and sure enough on the lap I went in to get some fuel, I’d made my way up to 3rd. Now the chase was on for the 2 guys in front of me!
I had a couple of ‘offs’ one straight after the other on the tight slippery bramble section which cost me a bit of time, nothing drastic, but annoying all the same and when that happens it tends to knock you off your rhythm a bit just when everything is going along nicely. With about 30 mins left I passed another rider in my class and had made it up to 2nd, now I really had ’red mist’ in my eyes as I knew I didn’t have much time to try and get the win, probably only a lap, but try as I might and having another ‘off’ due to colliding with a back marker whist overtaking, I didn’t quite manage it.
Caught up with Steve Jose at the end for chat and I’m glad he rode and got his TM out of
retirement for the day, he should do it more often!
Adam had a cracking result 3rd in experts (on his little katoosh) and 6th overall, so we all got back to the van happy including Nick who enjoyed watching, but come on Nick it’s time to get that bike out mate and start up again yourself and get amongst it! You know you want to.
Apart from Nick’s smelly feet and his soon to be famous catchphrase ’what I need is’, a decent laugh was had by us all on the 3hr drive home. In fact Nick, ’what you need is’, some bloody ‘Odor eaters’ to tame your feet!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Odor-Eaters-Insoles-Ultra-Comfort-Pr/dp/B001DZVEQ0
Finishing position: 2/20 (clubman E1)
