Mark just raced Round 2 of theย POC Scottish Enduro Series at Ae Forest … and scored 2nd place overall. Here’s his report from the race.
Thanks to the legend that is Trev Worsey for the images.
After a month in New Zealand and my first big race of the year at the Enduro World Series it felt good to be racing on home soil. It’s always good being at and getting to race the local events as well as the big-time World ones! I know the Scottish Enduro Series crew run a good event and Ae is only an hour down the road so getting signed up was a no brainer for me!
Practice was sweet. It was sunny and prettyย warm with dry trails and a good group of us hitting the stages. Oneย run of each of the 5 stages was about as much as I could get in but I felt confident enough going into race day on Sunday and the warm weather made things a lot more pleasant!ย The trails were a mix of fresh techy sections laced in with old parts of various dh tracks. All were short … but sweet! There was a good trail center stage thrown into the mix for good measure and to test the legs.
The race itself wasย cool – not least because the organisers don’t put too much of a time limit on the stage liasons. You just rock up when you want and dib in and out to ride. You can ride with your mates but still get serious for the racing!
I felt decent going in on stage 1 and rode well … but fluffed up my dib out at the end of the stage costing me some time. The rest were solid stages with consistent riding which was my aim for the weekend. I knew if I managed that I could do OKย and it landed me 2nd just in behind the on-form Greg Callaghan. Scott Laugland scored thirdย place behind me and Ben Cathro in foufth.ย It was also great to see a huge women’s field with almost 20 females racing. The fastest female racer of the day was Katy Winton.
Apart from my first dibber incident on stage 1, I had a good day on the bike and a lot of fun in some sunny scottish weather for a change. Top weekend!
