Great Result at the English Championships!

The English Championship race was held at Caersws this year on what was basically the old NPS track. The general consensus of opinion was that it was in dire need of a makeover – be that as it may it proved to be a good race with the team putting in some really good rides.

Needless to say the weather was typical of the venue - totally unpredictable! Saturday practice was marred by some full on downpours, turning the track into something of a swamp. It became almost impossible to put in a full run as so many riders failed to come to terms with the conditions that it was yellow flags from top to bottom!

One thing in favour of Caersws is its amazing ability to dry out quickly – and this proved to be the case as Sunday dawned with blue skies and sunshine. Most riders put in 2 or 3 runs to try and get to grips (no pun intended!) with the new surface. Even though this was a National B ranking event (same as a BDS) it was still a two race run format.

In the Juniors Mitch rode very aggressively to score yet another top ten (9^th) result with a time of 1:50.42. That’s 5 top tens in 9 starts – for someone in their first year of racing that really is a great effort.

Andy was next away after a quick tyre change. His first run was spoilt by a fall but in the second run he kept it upright to score 24^th place in the Seniors – just 7 seconds behind the winner. The Senior class is so competitive. As an example, just ahead of Andy there were 6 riders on the same second! Is that a record?

Elliot had been riding well all weekend and this continued in his race runs. His 1:43.02 placed him 4^th in Experts but as this was the English Champs and one of the riders ahead of him was Welsh he found himself promoted to 3^rd. His time was just 0.39 seconds behind the winner! So, so close to the win but at least he bagged another load of BC ranking points.

At the end of the day all three riders came away fairly pleased with their rides and rightly so. The Squadron will be back at Caersws in September for the final BDS race of the year.

- Paul Machin