Diggers DH Day

"Fancy a crack at Downhill?"

A few weeks ago my Dad asks me if I want to have a go at racing a Downhill, after receiving a NACC leaflet.
Turned out to be the English Champs at Bratton near Minehead, I wasnt too keen at first but dad talked me into it.
We spoke to a few people about it and ended up borrowing Jonathan Dominguez Specialized SX a real nice full sus.
We arrived real early on the Saturday so I could take full advantage of the up lift.
The course was quite flat and pedally at the top, down through the woods dropping down into a field to the finish line, pits and camping area.
The weather turned on us and it started to rain making the grassy field section more like riding on glass, making it really interesting with many quality riders hitting the deck time after time.
It was good to see a face we knew Mr. NPS4X Chris Roberts having at a shot at it.
Practice was good - a few hard crashes, one beaten front wheel but the runs were getting faster

Race day!
Second practice run of the morning my chain snapped after a bit of a panic and a bit of trouble we got it fixed and it felt ok.
First runs were slightly delayed because of a sabotaged cable and then the heavens opened, it was pouring down.
My seeding run started off ok but about quarter of the way down my chain snapped and that was the end of that.
There was much discussion just before the race run if it was safe enough to run it as of the state of the track. First of all the decision was if u wanted you could go for your second run but if it was slower than your first your second run was still counted. Many people didnt think this was fair because people were backing out of their second run because they knew because of the wet they would never improve on their first time.
After a lot of complaints to the commissar he decided to run the race run and it was to be the best of two runs.
My second run was much more successful, we had purchased a new chain. It was wet, very very wet but my time felt reasonably fast, I was happy with it, well I was happy to stay on.
One regret was that I rode flat pedals because I struggled to keep up the speed on the flat sections.

Overall it was a good day I came 9th out of 18 in junior and 65th out of the 130 riders overall
FULL RESULTS

Digger.