Dragon DH Rnd 3 & 4 Abercarn, Wales
Racing Reportage...
Jo Smith on the podium twice over the weekend.
Saturday and Sunday 22nd/23rd April saw Rounds 3 and 4 of the Dragon Downhill series take place at Abercarn. What a mix of weather they had - after a dry and sunny Saturday the rain came over night and gave the track a dowsing but was still running fast with the mud on only a few sections resulting in a lack of grip. The track was steep and technical to the last featuring rocks, ruts and roots, not necessarily in that order. From the start riders pedalled down the fire-road and onto the first bus stop before immediately heading into a fast rocky section, jump out of here onto a wide flat corner before entering the woods, keep the speed up as your wheels pinged off the roots and bounced through the ruts as you descended very fast down the hill before things got even steeper. Cross the fire-road mid way and you were faced with a choice of two lines - go low roll and pump into a deep compression or go high, hop the roots, pump and then pull up and hope for the best to land down into a very steep cambered and cross rutted section. Only the elites and one or two experts managed to hit this line. You descended very fast out of here into a two lined corner - decision time again - go wide and cut in, or take the inside which was certainly faster but very slippy. Lots of people lost it here over the weekend. If you kept it together here hop off a the small stump drop and keep focused as stumps and trees jostled for your attention as you went down into some very tight corners and roll in drops, soon the last bus stop came into view, hop onto here and drop down onto a flat corner littered with stones - foot off Sam Hill style was the name of the game here, before hitting the chute into the final section, twist yourself through the tight corners and roots and roll into the finish right in to the buzzing pit area.
The weekend saw some very fast and close racing, team rider Jo smith put in some very fast runs to take first spot in Youth on the Saturday with a fantastic best time of 1.57.106 despite suffering a high speed slide out into one of the many corners first run down. Jo put in another podium performance come Sunday and took third, maintaing his overall lead in the series in which competition is proving to be none the less fierce than on the national stage. The astonhill/ancillotti boys also made the trip down to race and put in an amazing weekends riding Nick and Jack Geoghegan took sixth in both Junior and Youth respectively on the Saturday and come Sunday with a few practice runs under their belts, were absolutly flying down the steep and technical track, Jack took a well deserved second spot in Youth between Sam Dale in first and our very own Jo Smith in third giving us two riders on the podium. Nick took fourth in Junior after a going off track and smashing his knee into some rocks. Unlucky for Nick but still a great result. These two are looking very fast in the lead up to Innerleithen nps rnd 2, do we see a national podium on the horizon ?, we will have to wait and see. Matt Kemp took 14th in Sport Male on the Saturday and put in a strong run to take 5th on the Sunday. Heres looking forward to the next race in the series at Gethin. Again well done to all the guys for a fantastic weekends riding.
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