661 Mini DH Round 1 2012/13 – Report

Pretty much the last DH race of the year was held today at the Forest of Dean, down the infamous Ski-run; a last chance to race the clock before people get on the mince pies and booze!

The atmosphere was excellent, with a huge number of competitors entered (317 to be precise) and lots of spectators braving the ice and the freezing weather. This was helped by an absence of wind and rain which made the cold weather conditions easily bearable. The FOD cycle centre was doing a roaring trade in hot food and drinks as well as bike parts.

The track chosen for this event (Ski-run) is a favourite with the organisers at Naked-Racing. It is also a favourite with the riders! It begins with a flat and reasonably muddy pedal into large rooty bombholes. Then the course took a big drop and crossed the fire road (which was manned by some enthusiastic marshals and spectators) and the speeds shot up as riders weaved through technical roots and stumps and over some large g-outs. The finishing section was some table tops and great berms (frozen solid at this time of year) which led onto a flat clearing and over the finish.

Practice was the usual hectic affair with many shouts of “RIDER!” echoing round the woods, but the main limiting factor was whether you were fit enough to keep pushing back up to the top! Only the fittest riders were able to fit in 4-5 runs. That is unless they chose to ride the excellent Fly Up Downhill uplift service which saved your legs for the important business of riding DOWN the hill. Fly Up were charging a very reasonable £2 for a single run or £25 for all day.

I put in five runs and did some playing around on the other tracks and jumps on offer around the FoD cycle centre so I was pretty psyched for race runs.

The FOD format is two runs starting with the Juveniles and finishing with the Pro-Am category. Riders were competing for a variety of bronze trophies which were shaped like full face helmets along with a variety of 661 and One Industries clothing and gear.

The commentary was keeping everyone entertained whilst riders smashed out runs in quick succession. Spectators were entering into a prize draw with One Industries to win a jersey signed by the entire Atherton team.

Many people were also excited to see Red Bull sponsored pro BMX legend Kye Forte in attendance. Riding one of his Red Bull team mate Dan Atherton’s factory 2012 Commencal DH bikes, Kye was flying all weekend and posted second fastest time in Masters.

The pace was high all round as 4X rider Duncan Ferris on his DMR Bolt set the pace in Pro-Am, followed by me with Rich Lane and Ben Deakin snapping at my heels. We then found that a rookie rider in his first ever race had beaten all of us to take the fastest time of the day! Watch out for Ben Raynor and his Specialized Bighit at future events.

The final results were:
Pro-Am
1st Duncan Ferris
2nd Will Soffe (Ride.io)
3rd Rich Lane

Women
1st Katy Curd
2nd Jo Page
3rd Jennifer Wilson

Rippers (10-12)
1st Fenton Bourne
2nd Jake Gaskell
3rd Adam Beaty

Juvenile (13-14)
1st Charlie Hatton
2nd James Thompson
3rd John Salisbury

Youth (15-16)
1st Leigh Johnson
2nd Owen Willicombe
3rd Nial Oxley

Junior (17-18)
1st Sam Marzetti
2nd James Whitby
3rd Jack Wells

Senior (18+)
1st Ben Raynor (FTD)
2nd Christopher Keeble-Smith
3rd Ben Gillet

Masters (30+)
1st Ricky Dorrington
2nd Kye Forte
3rd Joe Finney

Veteran (40+)
1st Pete Little
2nd Keith Saunders
3rd Wesley Cassells

So that wraps up this round, be sure to keep an eye on the Naked Racing website for future events.

Words – Will Soffe (Ride.io)
Images – Loz Webb (Roots & Rain)

2012 661 dh downhill downhill forest of dean mini dh racing report