SW Regional RD3 – Bristol
Woke up at 7am felling a bit crap still but got up but managed to get up and get ready by just after 8:00. I loaded the bike and my kit bag into the car and I was on the road by 8:15. About 15 minutes into the journey I remembered that I had forgotten to pack my chair but it was too late by then!!
As I parked and unloaded the car I was met by a couple of members or the club committee with a trolley to unload the club gazebo, while the gazebo was whisked to its spot I made my way over with my bike and kit bag and then helped to set up the Gazebo. It was a bit cold so I put my body armour on and went to get my bike registered before going to get a bacon roll to fuel up for practice.
As I was feeling bad still and the track is my second home track I only did a couple of warmup laps and also a couple of gates as well just to get the body moving. When the Moto’s were posted I could see that it was going to be a hard day as there were a lot of really fast riders entered and I was really not feeling like riding at all!
My first moto was the easier of the 2 moto’s and I had gate 8 which I was pleased about as I could stay out of the way and ride my own race, I got a good gate which looking at the times was the 4th fast gate time of the moto and I was surprised to see that I was in 4th place out of the 1st berm and I managed to hold on and finish in 4th so not a bad start!
For my second moto I had gate 1 and got an even faster gate which was the 3rd fastest gate of the moto and I was able to take an unimpeded line into the first berm and was surprised to see that I was in 3rd coming out of the first berm and was able to keep the position and was only 2 seconds behind the winner of the moto!
By my 3rd moto I was hanging and had nothing left in my legs and had gate 4 so knew that I was going to get cut up out of the gate which I did but I still had the 4th fastest gate of the moto but had a faster guy on my outside so had to break as he gut across to get inside so lost my momentum a bit and ended up in 6th position which I was surprised was enough to scrape the last place in the A final!! I was super stoke with making the A final but I was really tired in the 3rd moto and had nothing left in my legs so I was not expecting much in the final.
The final went pretty much as expected and I had the 7th fastest gate time and finished 7th as the guy behind me had been riding hurt as he had crashed in practice and his injuries got worse during the racing so he basically rolled around. I have to be honest the final was savagely quick and I literally had nothing left in the tank so I finished 6 seconds behind the winner and a disappointing 4 seconds behind the guy in 6th even though I was on his back wheel going into the 3rd berm!
All in all it was a good day and a really good learning experience and highlighted that I need to work on my gates more and also highlighted the need to work on my manuals and track speed if I want to get faster!
As the gate at my local club is currently broken I am going to focus on sprints and manuals leading up to the next National in a couple of weeks. I am going to practice pedal manuals for now as they are essentially the same technique as manuals but are a bit easier on the flat. Once I get the pedal manuals I will work on the manuals. I know that this has worked really well for a couple of the kids on the team I ride for as their manuals have come on amazingly over lockdown from practicing pedal manuals over lockdown so I guess that it will work for me too 🙂