Racing Roundup: Scottish Champs, Dunkeld & NPS Rnd 4, Caersws

Two great weekends of racing took place while I was away, and as promised we’ve got a double helping of news for all you race fans. Racing took place at two tracks which both offered a feast of flat out technical riding.

A wet weekend in Scotland saw Dave Young take a fantastic first place in the Scottish Champs at Dunkeld claiming himself the coveted title of 2006 Scottish Champion and some fine silverware for his mantelpiece. Team mate Fergus Lamb also set a blistering time (the fastest Expert rider time) and joined Dave on the combined senior podium in second. Paul French was back on his bike taking a well deserved third in Masters. Tony Tousamalis took a fantastic third in Juniors only a few seconds off the top spot.

Dunkeld is an unforgiving track, almost all natural and super technical to the last with steep and rocky being the name of the game here. Major features include three of the steepest rockiest shutes in the UK made even trickier by the wet conditions; and some gnarly rock drops and tricky root sections which taken at race speed aren’t to be trifled with. Get over the back off the bike and hold on tight and you know its going to be a bumpy ride.

The weekend after riders headed due south for NPS Round 4 taking place at a dry and dusty Caersws. Yet again it was another great weekend for the team; Jo took the Youth number one spot by two seconds flying down the course at warp speed and sprinting flat out to the line. Matt Simmonds put in two impressive runs to take fourth in Elite with a time of 2.11.976 only a few seconds off the number one spot.

Following the track used at last years national after the jumpy top section the track enters the woods and things get steeper from there on in. You have to be over the back and ready to tackle severely off-cambered sections with big root fields, and breaking bumps and sudden drops into berms thick with dust where you could catch the drift; all with some nice big jumps thrown in for good measure.

The sun was out this weekend and with only a small spell of overnight rain conditions remained dusty if a little sketchy in places where the ever present dust saw riders wheels disappearing from under them.

Juniors saw Tony Tousamalis ride to seventh and astonhill/Ancillotti rider Nick Geoghegan come in to take a well deserved eighth.

Fergus Lamb took ninth in Expert category riding hard to set a time of 2.19.828

In Senior Matt Kemp of astonhill/Ancillotti rode hard to take a well deserved sixth place in the face of some stiff competition.

Jack Geoghegan of astonhill/Ancillotti was also on it this weekend seeding fourth fastest in Youth he pinned the top part of the track only to crash heavily in the wooded section hitting a tree flat out and putting himself out of the race. Unlucky for Jack.

A big well done to all the guys for two awesome weekends of racing, check back soon for reports from the final round of the SDA at Innerleithen and the fifth and final round of the Nationals taking place at Fort William.