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The 2004 race season kicked off in style over the Easter weekend with the UK’s totally overhauled National Points Series. The NPS is now just part of a bunch of weekends of non-stop race action under the Premier MTB Series banner. New sponsors, new venues and a reconstruction of the race format meant riders were in for a treat and it was good to see that so many of them made the effort to travel down to Newnham Park in Plymouth for the debut.
Easter Sunday
OK let’s take it from the top. First of all I have to mention the course. Personally I haven’t raced a national for years. You always know what to expect – the usual fast, open and boring tracks that leave you nodding off over the bars by the second lap. Newnham has a reputation for delivering a tough course and this weekend was no expception. The crew had been out in force and built what has to be one of the best XC courses I have ever ridden. The downhills were tough and fast with loads of riders bottling out or crashing, the climbs were steady and sparse and the rest was fast, rolling singletrack that on a number of occassions left me wondering just how long I could keep it in the big ring before my legs exploded.
I’m not about to go into a long drawn-out inventory of which riders did what in every category, after all you come to Bikemagic for a bit of excitement of a slow afternoon. Notable rides were obviously at the top of the Elite field where a ripping battle took place between Oli Beckingsale and Nick Craig. Despite an abundance of opportunity to shake each other off these guys tore it up for five laps and it all came down to a sprint finish with Oli taking it by just a tenth of a second.
Making an appearance in the Grand Vets was a Mr Gary Fisher, he got off and walked the steep Mineshaft descent – perhaps hindered by his giant 29in wheels? It was cool to see that he came over and raced though and I hope we’ll see him at some of the other rounds this season. Keith Bontrager was out too.
Easter Sunday Evening
Short Track racing has been seen in the UK a few times as part of the Newnham 90 entertainments and at some of the UK’s other major events. It has made its place on the Premier series schedule for 2004 and it was a great bit of entertainment. The format was kind of complicated – riders rode motos and then went through to a final _ but every heat was frantic for a £300 prize fund. There was tons of argy-bargy as the Elite boys made every effort to take each other out on the first couple of bends. But the race winner was becoming clear from the start when Evans rider Jody Crawforth shone out to win all his motos and the final with ease, closely followed by Nick Craig who busted his guts to get from the back of the field into second place.
Easter Monday
The big change with the Premier Series is the new Trek 6-4-2 enduro events. This is as simple as it sounds – teams, pairs or soloists riding for six, four or two hours around a course that was an extended version of Saturday’s race course. Entry numbers weren’t as high as the National Points race the day previous but it attracted a different type of rider to the event which i think if anything helped Sunday’s race.
We figured we’d ride as a team, always happy to kick up a little rivalry between ourselves and also have a bit of a laugh. There weren’t really a lot of teams in place which was a shame but perhaps this will change over the coming three rounds. We reckoned that the enduro course was better than the NPS course. Everything flowed a little better, you could actuall enjoy the climbs and there was even more sweet singletrack. There were a lot of dead looking riders come the sixth hour as some underestimated the intensity of riding around Newnham’s tough track for that long. Still we saw some great riding and it was cool to see riders like Nick Craig, Gary Fisher and Barrie Clarke all hanging about to compete in the enduro event unlike some of the riders who bailed out on Sunday night for fear of traffic jams on the way home.
The six hours went by pretty quickly and the racing was good, it was kind of a different way to end the weekend although I’m sure that some people won’t be happy that the main XC racing has been relegated to Saturday whilst the enduros have taken on “main race day”.
OK, so my conclusions of the weekend? It was good – a wicked course, smooth organisation, pretty cheap racing and good prizes are simple but effective ways to make riders happy. All of these were delivered in abundance.
Next race is 8/9 May in bonny Scotland – details (and Round 1 results) at www.inevent.co.uk. Hard copy reports, more photos and action in the next issue of Shred magazine – hit www.shredmagazine.com to subscribe…
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