Chicksands Nps4x Round 3

So it was the return of the national series this weekend at chicksands. The turn out as ever was excellent and all the main faces were there in force! The track has also seen some noticeable changes, the roller to table has seen an upgrade in size in the roller, making jumping the whole thing doable now. The inside double into the triple has also seen a raise in height making it harder to clear smoothly at speed. the new flat corner has also seen and extension of the dirt mound and some logs on the inside, making it really good fun, not a follow the leader.

I have finally sorted out my gates too! I spent all saturday practicing gates on my jump bike, which is a slog to get moving as it has a hard ratio singlespeed set up. This sharpened up my reactions because i needed to get moving earlier to get out the gate. So when i got onto my race bike, my gates were on it with spot on timing.

My motos went well and i managed 1st, 2nd, 1st, 1st. Which i was super happy with. This put me 3rd in the points overall behind Scott Beaumont and Lewis Lacey, which i was happy with. I had Lewis, Dave Richardson and Ian Hopkins in my semi with 2nd gate pick. The gate dropped and i had a good gate snap just behind lewis and my left foot unclipped! It took me about a second to find the pedal and clip back in, by that point i had gone from 2nd to 4th, Great! So coming into the triple i was in chase mode and i was following Dave into the old last corner, attempting to make a move, watching him get a bigger and bigger drift, bang, he went down and my bike got tangled in his, i checked he was ok, got untangled, and rolled over the line in 3rd, B final it is.

Due to one rider dropping out due to a crash, the B final only had 3 riders. Me, Dave, and Mikey Haderer, as guest rider from america, who raced fort william and came to race to fill a weekend. Mikey had the snap with me just on his inside, until he had a catastrophic chain snap and he came across me on the first straight pushing me off the track leaving a clear outside for dave to come through and get the win. With Mikey's chain on the floor somewhere and a mangled rear mech he couldn't pedal and let me through to chase Dave, but it was too late and i came 2nd, 6th overall.

Now i have a long break and a holiday for 2 weeks in France riding downhill. Cant Wait!

Pat