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)
