Seconds out - racin' MiniDH @FOD

 
Forest Of  Dean - MiniDownhill - 29th January 
Here we go for the second round of MiniDH's FOD-based race series. With just myself representing team Supernova (in new kit no less!), we headed down with a group of friends & some other racers, anticipating a good day out in the woods. Word on the grapevine (which is always buzzing) was that the track to be used was the Corkscrew, a pretty straight-forward affair, starting of with a quick sprint & some corners, into a nice fast tabletop. Clear this, & keep your speed into a fun series of pumps, berms, & small take-off's which were fun going flat out. Next your sent straight across a fire road, with a fast drop into a straight-line of braking bumps, tree stumps & roots. Pick your line here carefully, through a rooty drop, go high to the right to line up for the last main right-hander berm, & you have your eyes on the fire road finish! This was a challenge for many, as you had two ways of going in, low & left, or high & right, but over a kicker that, taken to quick sent you nosediving onto the fire road, with the laser just to your right!! 

Heading off up the hill for our first practice runs, it was apparent there were a lot of racers here ! 335 in total ! This made practice in general run a bit slow, as with the track being so short, it was not a long enough for so many riders on course during practice time. This meant traffic jams whenever there were crashes, & at one point I pulled over (first run down) after being red-flagged, only for 6-8 riders FLY past me, ignoring the flag, & then getting stuck further down .. in total I got only two full runs in, & this, in my opinion was down to many riders actually racing on such a short course, and marshals not being as responsive as they should be. 

Apart from that, everything was spot-on as usual. A massive 79 riders in my (semi) old timers group, I bagged 21st. (oh, with a few more runs down..blah blah !) I seem to be developing a slightly different riding style on my K9, riding with more rearwards weight, making the bike work more & having more confidence in front-end grip than ever before. As everybody would say, all I need to do now is train a bit harder! Looking forward to this weekends race at Rogate ! 
Cristian Tomlinson