Forced to rest- 27th September 2009

Damaged my right elbow a few weeks back at the SCEC event, i knew what it was straight away, Tennis elbow. After doing last weeks South West round things got worse and i had no alternative but to pay a visit to the docs on Friday for some decent painkilllers.
So with the last SW champs round this weekend and a Midwest round a couple of weeks later, I didn't want to put anymore strain on the elbow, and seeing as i gotta job to lift a kettle up and make a cup of tea at the moment let alone twist a throttle, i thought it best to rest it.

I'm still debating weather to get a late entry into the Weston beach race this year as i still haven't made my mind up yet about doing it.

Plans this month:

4th Camel Vale
11th ?
18th Midwest
25th SCEC

Working party- 24th September 2009

Went on a working party this afternoon with other members of Camel Vale mcc to help get the woods at Dunmere ready for the last round of the South west champs that are taking place next week. Things didn't start too well for me as i managed to 'elbow' the clerk of the course Mike Roose straight in the eye whilst i was picking up a log doing a bit of track clearing, whoops!

What a bloody laugh we all had later. A certain John Young had to leave early and so rode Tony Dinham's bike back to where his car was parked and left. When we'd all finished and was ready to go home, Tony's bike was nowhere to be found, and it took 8 of us 20 minutes to find the bloody thing because John had camouflaged it too well amongst the undergrowth. So remember this folks, don't play hide and seek with A certain Mr J Young, you'll never blinking well find him!

Wolborough Barton- 20th September 2009

So I decided to go for the South west enduro championship race today instead of the Midwest one, but did I make the right decision? (pic by Sue Pitman)

The late summer we’re having continued as yet again the lovely weather was upon us as I made the short drive up to Newton Abbott (about hour an half) for the penultimate round of the series. Called in at a service station on the way up on the A38 only to pull up behind Andy Smith and Phil Harris, so up we went in convoy.

Now the thing is with these South west rounds is that I meet so many bloody people who I’ve got to know over the past season or two! Got parked up next Jon and Tom Hinkley, Adam Blake and Steve Jose arrived soon after, so with ‘Smithy’ and Harris a nice little posse of us were all gathered round for a decent chat and of course the usual banter.

Got signed on and met loads of folk along the way, Rich Tucker, Paul Fordy, Dean Canfield, Francis Banfield, Richard Jay, Arthur Johnson (cracking joke you played on me there Arthur you bugger) , Jed Treleaven, Gary McCoy, James Hull, and John and Sue Pitman. By the way, check out Sue’s handy camera work, you’ll find a link for it over on the right.

So with everything set, I was ready to do battle with James (Hull) as we are currently 1st and 2nd in the championship standings, and to be honest I couldn’t have cared less where I finished today, as long as I was in front of him!

A bit disappointed with the turn out in E1 today as only 8 of us lined up for the start, especially as all the other classes had a good amount of entrants. The flag waved and off we went and I got to the first corner in 2nd ( wot no holeshot!) as we hammered it across a couple of fields I lost a place and went into the woods in 3rd. The wooded section was extremely dry but nevertheless tricky in places due to the tight and twisty turns within it. The hills didn’t create many problems and it was nice to blast up them. After a few miles of wooded trails it was then back out through a couple of more long ’flat out’ fields before going into yet more woods that lay on the hillside, and back to the lap scoring. Only one little problem on the lap that caught a few riders out was a boggy section, but nothing major. I reckon the lap being about 6 to 7 miles and I was doing it in about 20 mins. A nice Course without too many fields!

On my very 1st lap I managed to get lost on the course ( I wasn’t the only one either!), a distinct lack of arrows in part of the woods off one of the lanes caused me to go completely the wrong way and I ended up doing the same bit of woods that I’d just ridden along. I must admit to being a little p**sed off about that, you come to a section that has 3 tracks to choose from, and there’s no marshal, no track tape, and no arrows! Especially when you’ve got in front of your main rival and you’re pushing hard to try and get away (which I did) and you end up losing time through no fault of your own. I reckon I lost about 5 mins doing that, so when I got back to lap scoring I didn’t know what position I was in and certainly didn’t know where everyone else was.

So with my first lap completed and a bit ‘wound’ up I set about trying to make for lost time and everything went smoothly. It wasn’t until the end of my 3rd lap that I quickly took a look behind me at the lap scoring and realized that James (Hull) was right behind me, Apparently he’d got lost as well on his 1st lap! So now the battle between us was definitely on and we both set across the fields hammering our little 125’s to the max.

He overtook me, I then latched onto his tailpipe, I overtook him and he done the same, and for the next 2 laps we were like kids fighting over a toy. I knew I had to pull out some sort of gap because he had a big tank on his RM and he didn’t have to re-fuel and I did, I managed too, but as I was pitting, he just got in front of me by a few seconds so the race was on again!

As I came out of the pits Francis Banfield came past me on his 250, not to be out done, I latched onto him as well, so in a way I was now in a 3 way battle even though Fran was in E2, I thought to myself, the more the merrier!. I caught James up again and passed him, then he past me again, I caught Francis up and past him, and set about getting back up to James. In one of the wooded sections I came round a corner only to find James on the deck after he had a little ‘off‘, so I past him again, after this I didn’t see him again, so our battle together lasted a good hour.

What happened next was probably the best duel I’ve ever had with someone whilst I’ve been racing. Fran (Banfield) went by me again, I got past him, he got past me, I then got by him again, quite frankly it was an awesome battle. We’d been going at each other since we came out of the pits together, and believe or not, that lasted until the end of the race. I was absolutely nailing the 125 across those fields to try and keep in front him and his 250, he was really ’on it’ today and so was I, and we both had a great battle, really enjoyed it. At the end of it all, and with us two glued together like Siamese twins for about 1hr 45 mins, he went by again and pulled out a gap on me and beat me by a minute.

I had a couple of little ‘offs’ along the way today, but nothing major, although I did manage to bash my hands a few times against those bloody trees (ouch), not a particularly clever thing to do in my line of work, but as Delboy would say ’he who dares wins’, and you certainly don’t get any prizes in this game for sympathy (although my hands may beg to differ at the moment), so you just say to yourself ’sh*t, that one hurt’ and you get on with it don’t ya!

Apologies to Jon Hinkley who I had ’off’ whilst me and him were fighting for a corner at the end of a fast field section late on in the race. I braked really late and got half wheel in front of him, when I looked round seconds later to see where he was, he wasn’t anywhere to be seen, oops! I’d manage to put him on the floor. I saw him later and apologized, he was alright about it, I explained to him that I had ‘tunnel vision’ at the time because I chasing whoever it was in front of me, so it was their fault for overtaking me!

So, with still not knowing where I’d finished in the E1 class when I got back to the van, I went off in search to see if I could get any results, and came back with a smile on my chops after I’d found out that I’d got the win and my main challenger for the title had finished down in 5th.

So a cracking day for me and nice to get back to normal after the last few races that I’ve done haven’t been to kind to me. Steve (Jose) had a good finish and so did Fran, although Adam had to pull out in the expert class due to being sick on the course a few times, not too good that as he was hoping to get some decent points towards the championship.

Had a chat with James on the way out and he said that he’d managed to get a puncture on his last lap, so weather he lost a place or two because of that I don’t know. I got a great result today and I achieved what I set out to do and that was to finish in front of him, and even better, I got the win, well pleased.

Finishing position: 1/8 (clubman E1)

Maze in the maize- 13th September 2009

(pic by Brewbs)

Cracking sunny weather greeted me as I made the 2 ½ hr drive up to the SCEC event simply called ‘Maze in the maize’. I was looking forward to seeing what was in store as it was described as a ‘unique’ event.

A few of us had made the trip up from Cornwall and I met up with Andy Smith and Phil Harris. Phil wasn’t riding due to having a bit of a bug (lightweight!) but came along any how to give us moral

support.

Whilst signing on I had a decent chat with Michael Brooks and Gary Mcoy, good old Gary kept me and Brookster entertained with his usual chat chit and admitted to us both that his blue background on his front number plate was in fact a ’south hams district council’ bin liner that had been cut up and gaffa taped on! I think that’s a great invention and maybe he should think about going on ‘Dragons den’ with that one!

So with the sun shining, it was off to get changed and go and line up ready for the off. Had a quick chat to ‘Boycey’ and also Kevin Pippard. First time I’ve met Kevin and I certainly didn’t know that he’d been reading the blog, amazing who you meet on the start line sometimes!

Yippee! It was another holeshot as I got away 1st again and led the field along the straight and up into the ’maize maze’. I didn’t really know what to expect as I’ve never rode through a field of 7ft high corn before, but it was fast going and to be honest, if you rode motocross, then you’d be at home. The weird thing was, you couldn’t see round the corners so you had no idea what was coming up next, apart from more maze of course! There wasn’t many racing lines either and if you got stuck behind someone, you had to risk going off line onto the small rocky surface and losing it. The course twisted and turned through the maze fields before going through a small woodland (which lasted about a minute) before going into more maze fields and then across a couple of normal grassy type fields to complete the lap. A very short lap it was too and it only took around 11-12 mins to complete it. With nothing technical and nothing really to slow things down, I knew I’d be pinning the 125 for most of the way round.

So after that good start I lost a few places on the 1st lap, lost a few more on the 2nd lap, made up a couple on my 3rd lap and I think I was lying in about 5th on my next lap when I overshot a corner in the maze ‘rat run’ and put the bike on the deck. I couldn’t believe it when I picked the bike back up only to find that my front brake lever had snapped to the point that I had nothing left to pull at. Flaming hell, that’s 2 races running now, you go months without anything happening and then 2 levers brake in succession! So, with no front brake and on a fast course, I had no alternative but to take it easy and head off back to finish the lap and go back to the van to change the bloody thing. Phil was there and being the good lad that he is, changed the lever for me while I had a quick drink before heading back out again. With the laps being so short and me having wasted a good 10-12 mins on repairs, I was basically now a lap down and I went through the transponders and saw on the lap scoring screen that I was now in 13th place!

Try as I might I pushed and pushed but ended up a lowly 11th at the end of it all, so yet again and for the 3rd event running, things haven’t gone my way. I’m pretty sure I must be due a change of luck, well not luck, but just for things to go ok and get back to normality, so lets hope next week has a change of fortunes.

Oh well, at least I had a nice ride round in the sunshine today and then a lovely ’chinese’ when I got home!

Finishing position: 11/15 (clubman E1)

Dilemma..................................

Got a bit of a dilemma this month. From the start of the year i've concentrated on 2 championships, the south west enduro champs (E1) and the Midwest series (vets). As the years unfolded and my results have got better, i find myself at the top of both of them, well pleased with that, but still with a couple of rounds to go in each, and with the points gap being so close between the first few riders, it ain't over till the fat lady sings, so there's still plenty of racing to do.

So isn't it a pain in the backside when one of them decides to put back their event by one week from their original date, and the other one puts theirs forward by one week from their original date as well, and now they both clash on the same day! Typical! So it looks like i'm going to have to sacrifice one of them. I don't know which one yet, but i'm not happy!

Just as well i didn't race the weekend as my vision in my left eye is still blurred from last week. Hopefully it'll be alright for this weekend.

Plans this month:
13th SCEC
20th West of England mc or Midwest mcc
27th ORE?