Race Report Dragon Mynydd Du 25/26 August 2007

Ok to those who didn’t go, you missed a mental weekend, mostly down to the fact that the sun came out, and although the very top section was holding mud in places
it was very ride able, even for me on the hard tail!. It was such a nice weekend that a lot of family campers had come up the valley for a quiet break, they got a shock,
when about 250 sweaty racers turned up. As venues go this one is spread out a bit and your mobile phone and radios don’t work here, most people hung around in the bottom
car park with the medics and nice ladies in the burger wagon ( try the homemade welshcakes ) everyone else was spread up the valley for camping or back down the
road to the uplift point, oh and the finish was across the river. The buzz around the pits was about names on the entry list and who might be coming down to watch,
but it was a no show, that was surpassed by the mad ass road gap at the first fire road crossing, it spent most of the day blocked off and was only opened at a set time
for Elite riders only, and even then only a couple tried it, you had to clear about 25 feet and the landing was pretty steep, coming up short was not an option and that’s
where the medics were waiting. Add to that it was shut for chainless runs as you had to hit it flat out. I managed to get up there for the 2nd race run hoping to get a
killer photo but it just wasn’t happening, big up to Ashley Mullane who was going for it, but you had to be spot on with your line, he wasn’t and pulled round it, he was
very vocal and his comment made us laugh up there, ( Ash no way are you one ) I had a chat with the marshal up there and he said he saw 3 riders do it over the weekend but didn’t get any pics.

Anyway back to chainless fastest nutbar of the day went to Rowan Sorrel with a 3.14 which with the fading light was fast. The light was freaky up there,
combine the dense tree cover and the sun going down behind the hill, by 2.30 ish the track was bathed in its own shade and was getting dark, that did cause some
people trouble. So on to Sunday, a cold damp and very misty start point, we didn’t have rain but the top section was a lot wetter so much that some went for the full
on spikes, must made do with high rollers or swampthing up front. Most people seemed to have a killer first run, but run 2 had the fading light again and it seemed to
be wetter than the first one, maybe we shouldn’t have had a piss at the top, do the math say 250 riders got in 3 runs and had a piss each time, that’s a lot of fluid
trickling down the track, you could say we pissed on our own chips. It didn’t slow some people down and Ralph Jones reeled in Rowans chainless 3.14 by 15secs,
Ralph was on it for a scary fast time of 2.59, yep sub 3 minutes on what is a brutal track, a track record maybe, a trip to the archives may be in order…
I was hoping the most mental thing I saw over the weekend would be the gap jump, but at the finish after my run, one of the teenagers rolled in and, well it made my
eyes water. Look at your bike, look at your saddle now bend the back of your saddle down until it touches the seat post and what part of your body would do that?,
feel those tears welling up yet, the lad in question got a load of ice packs and managed to walk away.. So after that the next round at Getting should be a walk
in the park. Check out Dragon Downhill for full results.

lain woodley club ace racing

Nathan Ballsy razzing his Dmr to another win.

dargon downhill mynydd du race report dirt