The weekend started straight after school when I rushed home to get changed and get a few final things ready. I made my way across to my friend Godfrey’s work. We soon left Belfast at about 6 and made the huge journey down to Killarney which lasted 8 hours including a few stops ect. We arrived at 2a.m. on Saturday morning and had to set up our camp for the weekend at the track which didn’t take long. It was a fairly cold night so getting to sleep took some time. I woke up with frost on the inside of my tent and got worried that it would have been icy. But a quick nip outside the tent showed that it wasn’t. The weather was looking amazing with clear blue skies and no wind it was perfect conditions. I went to walk the track and it was far better than in previous years. There were a few key features such as long off cambers and steep rock slabs. It was a short but physical track as you were on the gas the whole way down. Practice started very well and I was just doing runs with Godfrey all morning. I got 3 runs in before stopping to refuel and then a further 4 runs after lunch. I was feeling very fast on the track and was really enjoying the good weather.
Sunday night was a lot warmer and I got a great night’s sleep. I woke up at about half 8 and got ready and down to the uplift after giving my bike the once over. I did two quick runs at race pace so I know how I would be strength wise during my race runs. I then went and got some lunch and watched the u/14 and u/16s in their 1st race run cheering them on. One rider I was glad to see pinning it was 13 year old Ben Kennedy who took the win in u/14s, he also would have placed 3rd in the u/16 cat. He is a good friend of mine and its good to see him riding so fast. Now it was time for me to head up for my run. There was a short delay at the top of the forest with timing so we were waiting around. 1st run was fairly good, I was hitting most of my lines and only really messed up on one section near the bottom of the track where I dropped a foot around a corner which cost me a bit of time, apart from that I had a clean run and was sitting in 3rd place. I knew I had to give it everything in my 2ndt run and that’s what I did. Straight from the start gate and just sprinted the whole run. I hit all of my lines and was very happy with my race run. This put me in 2nd place improving about 3 seconds on my 1st run. Beating NPS round 1 winner Gavin Carroll who finished in 3rd place was a key thing I had to do as he is my main competition for the overall title race.
No comments:
Post a Comment