Brass Monkey R3 1st Feb 2010

With the first two rounds being very competitive, I was looking
forward to using R3 as a good judge of form as we approach NPS R1 at
the end of March. I had assumed I'd be racing for second, with Scott
doing his usual disappearing act, but things turned out a bit
differently today. I had pre-ridden the course on the previous day
with Ben Thomas. It was a hillier lap than R1 and R2, with 700ft of
climbing per lap according to the Garmin. The decents were really
fun, nice and fast and flowing. Just the type of course I like! None
of this scary rocky nonsense.

Soon after the start, a lead group of 4 or 5 riders had formed
including Scott, Luke Smith Hoppy and myself. About 2/3 of the way
round the lap, Scott and I managed to drop the other guys on one of
the many hills and we never saw them again. Scott and I stayed nailed
together for 3 1/2 laps, which I was really pleased about as Scott had
beaten me convincingly at R1 and R2. On the last hill, Scott faded
back a bit so I went for it and beasted the last bit of the lap to win
by around 30secs or so. It later turned out that Scott had had 3
weeks off after the last race, so wasn't on top form today. Just goes
to show how fast that man is - him on a bad day is the same as me on a
good day.

I ended up with 2nd overall in the Series, behind Scott, and a
collection of 1st, 2nd and 3rd place trophies. The series itself was
a good first go at a winter enduro series from the Gorrick / Army
team. They seemed to be learning lots as the series progressed - the
less said about the wet, muddy, miserable chaos of R1 the better - and
by the end things were going smoothly. Saying that, the cafe-in-a-van
at R3 was dreadful - queueing for 15mins to be told they'd run out of
water and that food was 15mins away wasn't good. Give me Lenney and
his burger van any day. Also, gridding the top 20 or so would be a
good plan - hanging around for 20mins to get a good spot on the front
isn't so great. The courses were a real mix - R3 was definitely the
best of the 3 with fantastic descents being a great reward for some
tough hills. R2 was fun too - and probably really good practice for
Sherwood Pines in a few weeks as it was a lot flatter and surprisingly
dry given the biblical amount of rain that had fallen previously.
Overall, I'm really happy to have done the series and it was great to
race at different venues for a change - I'll be back in 2010/2011 for
Brass Monkeys Take 2 for sure.

George