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Matt Craner #678 - Beyond MTB/WDMBC/RRP/Specialized - Super Veteran Male - Finished 4th (round 1:13th, round 4:4th)

The course consisted of an initial fire-road track to enable positioning of the pack before a tight right-hander and then a fast decent with a reasonable drop off and then a steady drag upwards to enter twisty single-track around the parking area. The course then blended in a great mix of further single track and a variety of short steep climbs that proved fairly frequent to quickly lead to surprisingly energy sapping effects especially a quite loamy one at the back half of the circuit. All in all a great course and all riders I spoke with enjoyed its trials and tribulations!

In the SuperVets race (and others) the first 10 people in the series were gridded and apart from my disastrous first round some regular placings thereafter meant getting into the first 5 on the line for this round. I made the decision at that point to see how long I could stick with Marc Hutt and Paul Hopkins as in all previous races I had seem them disappear right from the word go. Paul Howard, Robin Smith and Andrew Parsons were also in the hunt. The start horn went and I tagged onto Hopkins tail with Marc Hutt leading the charge. It pretty much stayed like that all the way round and as we went through the first lap all together I was feeling pretty good - until the steady climb when my legs just emptied - more muscular endurance training for me! From that point on it was a war of attrition to keep going - clearly I had gone off a bit too hard and fast. However, with the fast first lap I had put a decent amount of time into the chasing pack that it was only until the last lap that I was caught by a guy from sigma sport. It didn't help that my chain kept dropping from my big ring but at this point my legs seemed quite grateful for the smaller one! Not far behind now were the chasers of Paul Howard and Andrew Parsons. Robin smith had a minor mechanical with a chain suck episode which saw him drop from the chasing pack and lose about 1 min in time. Having made my school-boy error of going to hard and fast I couldn't keep the third place in my sights and dropped to 4th - which may prove crucial for a potential series 3rd podium place as currently Paul Howard lies a tantalising 4 points ahead - ie greater than 1 placing. Will make for a fun 5th and final round!

In the Grand Vets Rob Jackson was looking very strong and rode well but couldn't quite catch the likes of Jeff Sharp and Ray Crosthwaite who were pushing the pace. Rob got an excellent third place.

In the Vets race Jon Pierce was on the hunt and as always the vets had a strong field out. Dean Morgan was dominant and came in first with Jon coming in at a very respectable 7th and Phil Earl in 28th.

Martin Turton was racing in the sport category and put in some very good times and finished 3rd after leading on the first lap

All in all a great day racing. Next week sees the First National Point series race up at Sherwood Pines, the Vet field is packed out at 90 riders and I suspect will be a bit of a wake up call! My aim is a top 15 which will help the personal season goal of a top 10 series placing overall.

Phil Earl #846 - Beyond MTB/WDMBC/RRP/Specialized - Veteran Male - Finished 28th