Mid-West Hare & Hounds Sep 2008

Results and Pictures on www.mwmcc.co.uk

Just spotted Guy Mansfield-Smith came 3rd in the Vets and has a seemingly unassailable lead in the championship. Gavin Bailey also had a good ride 4 laps down on Steve.

I went down to the Midwest club's Ston Easton H&H in Somerset for the September round. I raced there last year in really bad conditions and remembered that it was quite hard. The weather was much better and the course much easier this year. This club has been going now for about 4 years and James and I have been with them from the start and seen them grow very big. They have many courses across the west country and have land owners asking them to come and use their land and they have a lot of sponsorship as well. They have recently started doing courses with man made obstacles in them, like the W.O.R and some wec events do.

This event was 5 mile laps of woods and fields and a few river crossings. The main attraction was the river, you had two options either through it or just cross it (Not sure what you mean here steve!). If you opted to go through, it was about 150 yrds long and 2 ft deep, there were bikes drowned everywhere and the bikes trying to get up out of the river were stuck on the banks, it was carnage. I remembered this from last year so I sealed up the electrics, capped off the breathers and fitted filter skins, it all worked a treat.

The going in the trees was tough because there is still a lot of water about. At the last 2 events the KTM has lost water from overheating in the trees, so to rectify this I've been onto Julian Stevens at D3 racing and he told me quite a few 08 KTMs have had the same problems, its due to KTM fitting smaller barrels and the waterways are too small. You've got to fit new rad pipes and remove the thermostat, also fit a expansion bottle because KTM don't fit one as standard. A bit poor really, if anybody has overheating or losing water problems on their KTM 07 on, get hold of me, I've got the info from the main man. A KMX 200 expansion bottle fits a treat and I never lost any water on the weekend at all. "Sorted".

The rest of the track was pretty straight forward, I had bit of a bad start but did gradually get near the front of the pack about 5th I think, got settled in and enjoyed every minute of it, really good track, one of their best ones. It ran for the full 3 hrs, towards the end one guy came off bad and needed a air ambulance, I was told at the end he had punctured his lung so hope he is ok. I seem to be getting loads more traction with the mousses and fitting them is easier than tubes, really pleased with them, should have had them years ago.

I had the results last night and I came 4th overall in Expert, beating 2 sponsored riders by 5mins. Darren Wheeler won and Derry came 2nd. 2 rounds to go!