Claudia Craig reports from the event on Sunday, 01 October 2023
This weekend saw the 5th round of the WMCCL hosted by Dynamic Rides at the Heart of England Events Centre near Fillongley. It proved an exciting day out for both spectator and riders.
Despite dry weather the course was anything but dry, some may describe it as a mud-bath! So much so, the course had to be changed after the first practice laps. Despite this it remained a technical but rewarding course, weaving around big fields, up tricky cambers, over muddy marshes and through wet woods. A lot of fun for the riders and indeed a sight for spectators, cunningly avoiding being sprayed by muddy cyclists.
The morning kicked off for RLSCC with the U16 Girls race as one of our youngest members Claudia Craig came 5th in her race. A great result after a tough ride. A bit of entertainment for the marshals as well as she tried to take some tape home with her on her pedal!
Our next race is the V50 race (Veterans aged 50-59), again an entertaining race. This was a race that really started from the gun as our RLSCC team of Steve Large and Gerry Scott started to battle the mud with a fast and experienced field. It’s fair to say the bikes of these riders came out a very different colour to what went in. It was all made worth it by the great results though with an 11th place for Steve and Gerry close behind in 15th.
The final race of the day for RLSCC was the Juniors, Seniors and V40 race. This is one tough race at the end of the afternoon as there was mud on the course as deep as the lake we were riding around!
Luckily the weather held up with grey but dry skies and our riders were able to whizz round a very busy race. The speed through the technical parts of the course was amazing and even where they couldn’t ride through the mud that didn’t slow our riders down.
A great race for Ben James, quick off the line and through the mud. Ben came home an extremely respectable 17th in the Senior category.
Our other two riders, Paul Daniels and Alex Craig also did really well. Paul road a fantastically consistent race, gradually working his way through the field from the back row of the grid. Meanwhile, Alex had a fast start, and managed to stay up towards the front of the race for the first couple of laps, before fatigue kicked in and he slipped back over the remaining laps. That said, it could be argued that Alex was going a little too fast towards the end; narrowly avoiding being lapped in the closing stages he ended up having to add an extra lap to his race!
In the end Paul finished a fantastic 13th in the V40 category while Alex rolled home in 30th, also in the V40 race.
All in all, a brilliant day. A really well put together event by Dynamic Rides and we can’t wait for Round 6!
Full results for all the races are available online: http://results.d3racetec.co.uk/results.aspx?CId=17077&RId=271