Dragon Downhill Rd 2 Gethin park May 10/11 08 Reportage and polaroids by Ace

So here we go again for human pinball you should be able to guess from that comment that it is not what you would call a smooth track. Anyway not much has changed track wise from last year, a few corners where taped differently with a new rock jump at the first fireroad crossing and a new stepdown further up the track, which was’nt there the week before on a practice day, and you had to launch it. So the gentle walk across the hill under the hot sun ( you needed a lot of water ) to the start. The start is a flat out sprint on smooth singletrack into the trees keep pedaling shoot the berms and start to drop into darkness trying not to hook up the rocks, pedal again over a small double and gravity kicks in, jump again into braking bumps and start to zig zag down the exposed hillside and remember that you cant roll the small stepdown, bit loose and lairy, ( check the vid on dirt’s site to see Husky hold it over the stepdown ) hit the first crossing and drop into the roots and hit the bombhole, again watch the rocks and your pedals, jump right onto the grass and straightline a few corners on what is a smooth ride, coming into the second fireroad crossing and the main rock garden, there are some lines here but holding one is not easy.

Left then right try and ride the edge of the grass again it’s lumpy and loose and starting to hurt now, the rocks thin out and the gap jump comes up, hit the slab and take off or keep just right pull up the bars and manual the chicken run ( or take off as i found out ) the end is in sight try and pedal up to the last corner without hooking up and drop into the finish.

So saturday saw a damp start but the track soon dryed up and by seeding time was near perfect. Now seeding just sorts out the running order for racing and lets everyone know what they have got to do for the race runs, once again Lee Huskinson from dmr caused a bit of a commotion with his time coming in something like 23 overall with a time of 3.12, i did hear people question if the timing was wrong ( nope it was working ) Sunday was going to be an interesting day.

Sunday turned out to be even hotter than saturday, with the track getting really loose and dusty, and as the day went on i saw several people walking around with there arms in a sling ( it ain’t gentle if you bin it ) saw a lot of people come down with blown tyres too, funny thing was not 1 of the hardtailers had that problem ( 55 psi worked for me ). So run 1 saw most people do there best time as it got really hot for run 2 and it was hard work trying to sprint the top section. As it was a nice day quite a few people hung around the gap jump to watch the stylemongers whip it and X-up. A hot day on a Harsh track with some close racing. for full results and times go to www.dragondownhill.co.uk but heres a few for you anyway.

Overall top 3 went to 1st Ashley Mullane 2.53 cove/raceface Elite 2nd Nikki Whiles 2.55 Team Skene Elite 3rd Robert Williams 2.58 Team Skene Junior.

Fastest lady went to Monet Adams 3.27 Solid/quad/cwmdown Youth followed by Haby-blu Cann 3.30 CF3 Team Elite

Talking point of the day went to Lee Huskinson 3.15 ( Hardtail ) dmr/Marzocchi/Mace/Nike6.0/Blazingsaddlescycles, he came 63rd out of 232 racers ( how ? )

And there was a high number of DNF’s, I counted 25 over both runs which is a bit on the high side, but a harsh track.

Ace hardtailnation.co.uk

Bit of a story with the marshall picture, thats Simon from Newquay Pirates, during his seeding run his fork went pop or was it bang as the rebound damping let go, he was in the rock garden at the time and the fork tried to kill him, now being in vets he hangs out with Jerry Twigg who just so happened to have 95% of last years race bike at home ( no stem ) a shady car park deal was struck and simon was getting a new toy for sunday’s racing ( so he thought ) the problem was Jerry’s bike had a low stack Burgtec stem in 1″ 1/8 which was now on his new bike,the plan to fit simons stem failed as his was 1″ 1/2 so he had two unrideable bikes, instead of going home and sulking ( which some people would ) he got hold of jason and became a marshall for the day, TOP BLOKE AWARD ! but it gets better Caroline from TF Tuned was 2 cars down from us and she has taken the fork back for Flooksy to make all shiny and working again TOP BIRD AWARD ! it’s stuff like this that makes racing a good experience, even when it feels like it’s all gone tit’s up.

Dragon Downhill Rd 2 Gethin park May 10/11 08