2003      FOUR DAYS IN THE FORT

• Gracia and Pascal make it a French one–two in the men’s DH.
• A young Sam Hill gets his first World Cup podium finishing up in fifth, with Gee Atherton back in twelfth (the highest placed Brit).
• Peaty once again has bad luck, this time getting involved in a crash in 4X and damaging his ankle.
• Tracy Moseley is the lone British rider in an otherwise all French women’s top five.
• In contrast to year one, 2003 is dry, and the track is punishing in a different kind of way.
• Brian Lopes breaks his ankle in a freak accident in 4X on the first straight, and Greg Minnaar takes in win.
• Sprung videographer Alex Rankin throws a perfectly aimed steel toe capped boot at Dirt journalist Steve Jones in the dark. Jones gets broken nose and Rankin gets some revenge.
• 4X is all about first corner carnage.

“that’s one of the most physical tracks I’ve ever ridden…brutal too I guess.”         Eric Carter

There have been so many stories from Fort William, so many that I don’t know which one to pick. OK, after a beautiful day of racing the track in dry conditions, we all decided to celebrate in a restaurant bar in the middle of the forest! After a couple drinks we all started to do a stupid contest around the bar until it got out of hand.

Three of us then decided to go for an adventure. We decided to chase sheep! Fun for sure, until the farmer turned up and asked us “what are you guys doing?” I said, “we chase the sheep” and we started laughing. He got pretty pissed off and said “you think it is funny” and he started to chase us in the dark with his son. We probably ran around 3km, except for one of us who probably ran 5km to get away!

Sure thing, we all go back to town, and all the bars were packed with people, with big queues. I took ‘the 5k runner’ to come with me and jump into the front of the line and tell the girl on the front door, “we are the guys who change the kegs of beer for you, apparently you guys have a problem”. And she looked at me, with my strong accent of course…and we push through, got in and enjoyed the beers until the end! We are still laughing about the run in the field today.

There’s little doubt that the ancient bog that is Aonach Mor already has a place in two wheel sporting history on this island. It now sits alongside such hallowed places as the likes of the grand lowland locations of Hawkstone and Donnington Park, Farleigh or Cyfartha Castles.

It’s unlikely you’ll experience much hanging ‘Grand Prix motocross dust’ as is found in the Shropshire and Wiltshire arenas, but Fort William has many of the trademarks of that latter place, a many–time World round trials town of the south Wales’ valleys – beer, street fights, chips shops and aluminium are never too far away…oh and bogs.

Fort William, a hard place jammed into a lakeside corner surrounded by an utterly captivating mountain environment. But being north it’s never shadowed by Ben Nevis, and each of the past ten years it has lightened up the downhill calendar.

A place of cliff hangers, I have many memories. Hungover in a makeshift press tent, early hours with the inimitable Donella at the Cruachan hotel, even won a British masters’ series there once. Many recollections. The blood spattered walls of my hotel room with Alex Rankin after being caught full force in the face by a flying loose steel toe cap boot that came inbound after pushing the water joke too far. Gagging on my own blood, that greatest of hosts (Donella) got me straight as well as the shift doctor who put back in place a nose that had no place at all. I remember being sat with Peaty as he drank wine at lunchtime before he won his one and only World Cup on home soil in 2005 (and the many pints he had on the nights leading up to that).

2002 kicked this venue off in spectacular fashion and late into the night the shenanigans in the hotel are probably best kept behind closed doors – I seem to remember going through one at one point. The next day Billy (the web) and me had travelled south with Mike the editor. He dropped us at Crewe train station with some lame excuse for ditching us (Ed note: I was living in Nottingham at the time and South Wales seemed like a long way from home!). From there it was a journey south to Abergavenny and it was on that train I wrote my first World Cup report:

“If I die tomorrow it will be happy in the knowledge that I witnessed what was probably one of the greatest World Cup wins ever. Chris Kovarik steamrollered the opposition with a mind–blowing display of bike skill and athleticism. It was a riding lesson to the SPD boys with a fiery, leg trailing, power sliding performance that really was from another planet. Three seconds up at the split, located just above the tree line, and on flat pedals, he pulled a further eleven seconds on Gracia on the bottom part of the course alone. It was total annihilation of the world’s best. The force is strong in this one.”

Back in Wales me and Billy were stuck on a roundabout, it was getting dark. It was warm down south, and dry. We were still buzzing from the lightening that had struck Aonach Mor and all the intricacies that surrounded that event. You’re never far from the reality of life in Fort William, and as complex as racing can be, the area is largely a dirty big chunk of granite with a bunch of volcanic dykes cutting through it. Boy it can be a dark place. Arrive at the wrong time you will get eaten alive.