Wideopenmag team rider Jay Williamson brings us his view on last weekend’s wet and windy Halo British Downhill Series race.
Fort William is a track that I know lots of us riders always look forward to each year. The big thing this year though was the buzz on Facebook/Twitter questioning the weather for for the weekend. It was not looking good for racing on sunday and could cancel the race due to the gondolas not being able to run due to high winds.
I traveled up on Friday with team-mate Rich T to discover that most riders were already up on the hill for practice – word had already got round that Sunday’s racing could be cancelled and moved to Saturday afternoon and a lot of riders were out making sure they got the practice that they needed.
Saturday practice went well for both me and Rich and we both enjoyed smashing out some runs on the big, rough track. The weather was spot on in the morning but things changed in the early afternoon with the bad weather moving in, the wind picking up and the rain kicking in. The big problem by Saturday afternoon though was the high winds which were really causing riders some problems up on the hill.
Both race runs from me and Rich went well, my run was just another smooth and safe one and looking back I did not really get into my run as much as I maybe did at round 1. I was happy with another 6th place though and went away 4th overall in the series.
Rich seemed to have a similar story and came out with a 20th place overall which he was a bit dissapointed with. His excuse was that he played his pre-race warm up tunes to loud and put himself off. #struggler! Despite that he got a decent result in a packed category and put himself 10th overall in the series.
Few thank you’s now, to all the team sponsors, Chaz Curry (Team mechanic) keeping us rolling this weekend, Jamie Edwards (Team manager) and Paul roberts and Tim Lake for putting together this top video of all the action on the hill this weekend! Thanks also to the guys at Monster for putting us up for the weekend and giving us somewhere to stay!
Thanks also to Paul Cram for the great images – you can check out his Facebook here:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Paul-Cram-Photography/286824834679271
Until next time, check out the Wideopenmag.co.uk video:
