NPS Final Round

Innerleithen - 13/14th October 2007

Saturday 13th October and it’s back to Innerleithen in the Tweed valley, Scotland for the re-scheduled round 3 of the NPS race series.

First of all it’s a quick walk up and down the track to familiarise yourself with the layout of bends, jumps and drops to make sure nothing surprises you on your first practice run.

Practice was all day Saturday with no seeding run due to the lack of daylight hours, and as this is the last round, seeding positions are worked out from your position in the series.

Uplifts were provided using cattle trucks for the bikes and coaches for the riders.

Out of the start gate and it’s onto a rocky path straight down into the woods then left and down a couple of chutes bringing you out into the quarry and over the road gap jump back into the dark trees at the other side.

The track here winds its way through quite open trees before crossing an off camber very short grassy clearing and diving down the very steep and tight section between the trees that just keeps on turning left then right on loose dirt and rocks, over roots and jumps, then all of a sudden its round a big corner and out into the open.

Here you fly down a steep bank, over a road crossing and over a short series of doubles then back into the woods with long straights and drops, tight lines and big roots to hop over, then out onto the fast motorway section, complete with a bus stop, long, off camber and full of roots.

Finally you are on the last bank and not too far from the finish, but all of a sudden it turns back into a technical course with tight corners on loose dirt and stones then into a small bomb hole which spits you out and over the road down to the finish line.

Race day arrives and the weather is again kind to us in Innerleithen, what a refreshing change from the last round of the SDA series at Glencoe.

After 2 good practice runs followed by a rest break Ben set off for his race run, but with a couple of errors on some loose corners Ben came home with a time of 3min 33secs and 20th place in youth category.