The pace was quick off the start and I tried my best to hold on to the top guys but fell back and was 7th at the end of lap 1. I was feeling good though and really enjoying the course, a mixture of smooth flowing berms with the odd jump and some steep rocky chutes, oh and steep climbs too – they don’t do flat at Lee Quarry! The dust made some sections quite tricky but it was very fast and a lot of fun. I had some good little battles throughout the race and I managed to work my way back into 5th by the end of the 7 laps. I’m pretty happy with this result in the heat and it’s an improvement on my result in round 1. I’m already thinking how I can improve for round 3 now!

Tom Albutt

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There was a high standard of racers there for Sunday’s race with the series now counting towards BC ranking points. High winds also contributed to make the already technical, rocky course even more tricky and we had to fight hard against the wind to keep a line on the narrow rocky singletrack. It’s fair to say I felt battered after an hour and forty minutes pounding round the 5km lap of the quarry.

It’s a great course, with both rocky trails and some fast and flowy singletrack. This year a lot of money has been spent building new trails at the quarry and we got to race on them on Sunday and very impressed I was, well done guys.

I finished 9th overall, a result I’m a bit dissappinted with as I was aiming for better but I had a good battle with Craig Holden, a previous Weekend Warrior category winner, matching lap times for most of the race, unfortunately he just got me on the line with a sprint finish. That’s 2 races in a row I’ve lost out on a sprint finish! Something I need to work on it looks like!

Anyway, there’s still 4 races to go in the series so I will be back and better next time! This racing lark is very addictive!

In the mean time my attention has turned to mountain mayhem which is in 2 weeks, very excited about that so look out for a follow up report in a couple of weeks!

A full race report can be found on Singletrackworld here:http://www.singletrackworld.com/2010/06/hope-xc-race-series-race-1-report/

Tom Albutt
Joyriders Race Team 2010

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