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| Joe Pitt crossing a flooded stream |
After a week of rain, Round 2 of Mud Sweat & Gears was a fitting way to end the wettest April on record. As Hylands is CYCC's home race, we were asked by the race organiser and long term friend Matt Ewings to help set out the course. Despite the rain on Saturday morning it was good to see so many members show up, many thanks to you all. After a short briefing from Matt, we split into three groups marking out many of our regular routes plus a few new sections with signs, stakes and tape. By about 12:30, the first version of the 4 mile course was ready for a test lap for anyone brave enough, it was clear at this stage it was going to be a very muddy race.
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| Taking shelter by our tent before the start. |
By the time we were meeting on Sunday morning by our tent, areas of the park were under water as the Chelmer had burst its banks. Sections of track looked like small lakes and all of it was very muddy. Following a slightly delayed start, the Youth and Juvenile riders were first out to race. Joe and Jordan were together for the first lap, closely followed by Alex Salmon. Harvey Jennings was caught up in crash on the start line and managed get going again but was forced to retire after the first lap. In the second lap, Joe had the stronger legs and managed to pull out a convincing lead over Jordan managing 6th overall in the Youth catagory. Jordan and Alex came 3rd and 4th respectively in the Juvenile catagory.
Next race was the under 12 & unders. It had been decided that this race would be held over a short course meaning that it was held over 10 laps with much overtaking and action throughout the race. CYCC was represented by Billy and Fern.
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| Billy on course. |
Billy managed secure 6th place overall in a large field, a fantastic result for his first race, Fern managed 7th in the girls category.
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| Fern getting lapped by Billy |
Despite the rain and extemely tough conditions, it was a really enjoyable days racing, I am looking forward to Thetford already.
