Monday, 23 June 2014

Scottish Championships

Glencoe Mountain hosted this years Scottish Championships and it turned out to be the perfect venue for the highlight of the Scottish Downhill season.
The track crew had put in some hard graft to bring it up to the standard expected by the racers and committee of the Scottish Downhill association and the weather was fine all weekend. 


The team arrived early to get our pits set up so we had everything we needed for a weekend of racing and we then headed up the chairlift for practice.




The track was fast right from the start and started off by dropping into some woops and berms before heading flat out along a rough traverse and then downwards at full tilt over rocks before hitting loose rock strewn sections. 



The track finished off with a smooth jump section and some berms before crossing into the finish.




We all got in plenty of practice and were having fun riding the fast demanding track and were ready to put in full effort in our race runs confident that we had all the best lines.




Ewan and Alastair jnr both had good runs with Alastair coming in 2nd and Ewan 4th both with great times.





Keir is improving his results at every race and put in a good performance to finish mid field this weekend.



Neil and Alastair battled it out in Vets with Neil finishing 3rd and Alastair taking the Scottish Title ahead of John Young in 2nd.










A great weekends riding and racing was had by the team thanks to the SDA and the crew at Glencoe Mountain. Thanks also to all medics and marshals who were stationed on the hill all weekend for us.
Thanks also to Marked Mediahouse for images as well as Nukeproof for continued support.

Thursday, 5 June 2014

British Downhill Series Rnd3

The Team traveled to Ae Forest near Dumfries for round3 of the British Downhill Series l ast weekend.
Having been here only 2 weeks before hand at the Scottish series race there was a lot of familliar bits of track being used. Again it was warm and sunny which made for a fast running and super fun track with its mixture of fresh cut lines and jumps.
Uplift was running a bit slow which meant a lot of waiting in queues, but at the end of the day all of us got in 6 or 7 runs which was pretty good and we all had our lines dialled for racing the following day.



AL sending it 



Race day was again dry and warm which suited everyone and after a couple of practice runs we got stuck into racing.
Alastair, racing in Grand Vets this year in the BDS had little competition but set out to "smash it" in his race run and after a good descent came home a clear winner 20 secs ahead of second place man Steve Felstead and also beating the entire Vets field showing the old boy still has pace.
Neil was up next in the very competitive Vets Category and had a good steady run. Neil finished 3 secs off 1st place man Mark weightman which put him on 5th spot on the podium.
Youth cat riders Al and Ewan both had good runs and are beginning to show signs of maturity and consistency in their riding and racing. This weekend Ewan came out top in the pair finishing 16th with Al 1 sec behind in 17th.
Junior cat rider Keir stepped up his game this weekend to put in a solid ride coming home 31st in the super fast category and showed that his training and fitness are now coming into play.


Ewan floating on air.

The season is well under way now and we are having lots of fun riding and racing our Nukeproof Scalps and Pulses which have run perfectly for the team and have proved a great race bike. Thanks again to Nukeproof and Hotlines for their support.

Next race for the team is the Scottish Championship at Glencoe Mountain resort in 2 weeks time.

Thanks to Paul Cram for the Images used in this blog.