English DH Championships, Bratton

Riders rolled, slipped and slid into Bratton near Minehead for the English Championships on the 22nd of October, the last major points scoring event of the season. The venue had not been the first choice of location to host the event and the track itself was short descending through the woods with some sections made really hard work by the conditions, a small drop sent you flying down into the finishing field. The weather was awful; strong winds and pouring rain qualified the event as one of the wettest this year.



As Practise started it soon became clear that spikes would be the tyre of choice to keep you upright, even so the damp open corners in the final field section saw many a high speed slide out. Getting through this section clean was a real challenge and during practice a lot of fun was had seeing how far you could drift.



By the time seeding runs were underway the heavens had opened and things started to go downhill from there. No times were available from the seeding runs and amidst rumours of plans to cancel the race the atmosphere in the pits was one of confusion. Organizational issues saw riders, who weren’t taking advantage of every available piece of shelter, milling around in the torrential rain, trying to find out what was going on.



The finish field was by this time thick with mud and partially flooded whilst the track was in places underwater. Under difficult circumstances hats go off to the BC Commissar who made the call to allow second runs to go ahead for those who wanted them. Many took the opportunity and braved the elements a second time for the chance to improve on run one.

It now emerges that the race timing cable had been broken so no results were available on the day. The organizers had logged riders start and finish times into the computer and calculated the results over night. Come Monday morning riders where anxiously checking out the NACC Events website to find out how they’d done.



In the Elite category Matt Simmonds took the win and the title of English champion, Ashley Mullane (Cove/Shred) took second with Jamie Faulkner taking third. Nick Geoghegan of Astonhill/Ancillotti put in a fantastic ride to take first over Jason Davies and Bradley Shields who took second and third respectively in the Juniors.

Youth saw Jack Geoghegan (Astonhill/Ancillotti) take second only a few seconds off the top spot which was taken by Marcus Williams, Harry Molloy rode hard to take third.

Well done guys for a fantastic weekend of racing under less than perfect conditions.