Southern XC Round 5 - Calum wins twice in a day
Bordon: 30/09/07
By Paul Howard
The fifth and final round of the '07 Southern XC Series was held on military land at Bordon, Hampshire. Many of the tracks have been created over the years by motorbike enduros which make for a very smooth and flowing course. The organising club West Drayton MBC had made best use of probably every single available trail in the woods including the flat out 1/4 mile tarmac start straight.
Our team were in with a good chance of securing some Series Podiums so finishing with high race positions was key today. First off was Calum racing in Juniors. Despite a few months away travelling and working (at altitude I might add!) in South America he seems to be riding with the turbo's on full boost, leading out his 3-lap race to a solid win with a 1m 24s margin. Not content with this he also lined up for the 4-lap Sport race which started not long after finishing the Juniors. He took this by storm too, again with a 1m 24s margin... bizarre. Commenting afterwards he put it down to learning the lines having raced 7 laps in total, but also the stamina to speed up his lap times. And yes if you look at the times, he overtook both myself and Hoppy in Supermasters! Speaking of which we lined up with three Experts and nine Supermasters, not many but a quality field nonetheless. Hoppy rode to a well deserved fifth after suffering with continual stomach pains, unfortunate for any riders following too closely. I was pleased to maintain relatively steady lap times and pull away from one of my regular competitors Andy Parsons to gain eighth place. Hoppy finished third overall in the series, myself about 8th having missed two rounds.
The Grand Veterans was represented by Clive who was looking forward to blasting round the trails; "I love this course... it has nice short climbs (phew!), there's lots of twists and turns that suit my bike handling skills, and the Scott Spark is ideal for it." Clive had a good tussle with two Beyond MTB riders, getting surprisingly overtaken within sight of the finish line and then taking the place back in a 'max heart rate sprint' for fourth. This resulted in him taking third overall in the series.
Our thanks go to Dean for manning the feedzone and giving encouraging shouts.
Pos Laps Time Time+ Name Lap 1 Lap 2 Lap 3 lap 4 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- JUNIOR 1 3 01:08:38 CALUM CHAMBERLAIN 22:40 23:15 22:43 SPORT 1 4 01:23:51 CALUM CHAMBERLAIN 20:55 20:36 21:03 21:17 SUPERMASTER 5 4 01:24:16 01:50 PAUL HOPKINS 20:37 21:10 21:25 21:04 8 4 01:27:57 05:31 PAUL HOWARD 21:19 22:04 22:04 22:30 GRAND VETERAN 4 3 01:11:48 06:42 CLIVE ELY 23:11 24:14 24:23
Hoppy taking the rocky chute at speed
[ Photo courtesy of: Mark Gregory ]