English
11th October 2009
National Trophy Series Round 2
The second round of the national trophy series took place in Derby on a course with plenty of corners and very grassy ones at that. It was a good job that the ground was hard pack although it was slippery on some of the corners because of the light drizzle of rain that occurred in the earlier races. This made the course a lot more interesting for the spectators especially when there were regular crashes and a manic start lap with every one fighting for positions.
After a good warm up on the road and a few practice laps of the course I was ready to race. As always riders get gridded on their series position or national ranking, I was on the third row from the front. The race started flat out in to what was essentially a few corners that acted like a funnel which made it difficult to over take or move up in the bunch. Then because every one is going at a similar pace it was hard to move up the field due to the tight circuit. I was riding well for the first two lap until I rode up an off camber bank following another rider and we both washed out. I then lost a few places but managed to move back up to a similar position that I was in.
For the remainder of the race then I was with two other riders and we worked well but never seemed to gain on the riders who were dangling in front of us or get caught by the riders chasing us. For the last couple of laps I felt comfortable and new that I could beat the riders I was with if it came down to a sprint. Sure enough we stayed together until the last few corners where I made my move to the front.
As I exited the last corner before the finishing straight I had to shut the door on a rider trying to over take me by cutting tight in to a corner so he had to brake and that left my in the position to win my little bunch sprint. I finished in 27th position exactly the same place as the first round but I thing the competition was better than the last round with a few international riders mixed in.
Ben