Gosport Winter Regional - A Redditch Premiers Road Trip

As Greg had mentioned in a previous post, last Sunday, Matt Mayneord and myself, made the trip down to Gosport on the South coast for the 1st round of the South Region Winter series. Matt had to go down to the South Coast to drop a bike off and suggested we killed two birds with one stone and race the Regional. It was a track that neither of us had seen or ridden before and we had heard good things, so that was enough to make the decision for me; its always good to ride next tracks and spots.

The trip down was easy but the weather wasn't looking too great, it rained for most of our journey. When we eventually found the track, Practise was in full swing. The first thing we did was got out of the car to check out the track. It looked dry considering the rain the region had had, and with only 15 minutes of our 1st practise session left we hurried to get our bikes out of the van to get a couple of gates in and get a feel of the track. Luckily the South split up their practise into blocks, Under 13's and over 13's have 2 sessions before racing starts. This made sense from a safety point of view but also meant we weren't really queueing a long time for gate practise. This is defiantly something for us to consider for when the track in Redditch is built and we start to hold our own events.

The first corner at Gosport is a tight, right hand 90 degree tarmac turn and when you go 8 riders deep into it its a case of hold on tight and say a little prayer; especially when you're racing Masters/40 like myself and Matt were. There were 10 of us in our category, seven Masters( 30-39 year old) and three 40 and over riders. It was good to see that Miles 'the flying fox' Kirby, Mad Ady Warden, and Jai 'Redline/SE Racing Team Manager' Kemp had all made the trip down. All of us, mixed in with some local guys and South region riders, promised some close racing. Even with 5 in each moto the corners were proving tight and hard to make passes, I know this because my gates were that bad that I found myself at the back most of time and trying to pass people in corners. Matt however made rather lighter work of qualifying for the Final with 3,3,4 in his motos to qualify 5th and my 5,4,2 with a little bit of look saw me through in 7th place. Come final time and it was going to be between Jai, Ady and Miles. They had been swapping wins in the motos and were just a level of above where myself and Matt are right now. Miles took the win much to his delight, with Ady taking 2nd, Jai 4th, Matt 5th and Myself 6th. Over all the race meeting was brilliant. There were approx. 150 riders in attendance which was amazing considering the location and the weather they had had over the weekend. !

7+ payback was stacked to the rafters, Notable riders were Zoltan Buday (19+ National Champ, 19+ big hitters Billy Luckhurst(Profile and Hayes Hawks) and James Chadwick(Bournemouth) Jon Moore (40+ National Champ) Jon was on fire and really mixing it with these guys, I knew Jon was fast but to see him hanging with some fast young riders was awesome; watching the semis, I saw some good riders missing out on the A final. 40+ cruiser was busy too, with nearly enough riders for Semis. Gary Godden taking the win on his shiny new Redline with a move on the last straight.

We didn't waste too much time in loading the van up and getting on our way. With a 2 and a half our drive in front of us we wanted to get on the road. The event was run so well that racing was done by 3.15pm and we were away.

We would like to say a massive thank you to everyone from Gosport Club and the South Region for a great day and we will definantly see you again over the winter.

Benn.

For South Winter Series details check out this link:
British Cycling South Region BMX

Gosport Track Panorama

R.P. Rider, Matt Mayneord/Jai Kemp/Miles Kirby & Son