British Masters round 1 – Mallory Park

Ok, so its the first one of the year. The one everyone has been waiting for. A little bit like A1 for us amateurs but not quite on the same scale. Having started training mid november through christmas right up until late January, i was well and truly ready to throw my leg over a bike again. After a breif 3 days riding in belgium due to bad weather and a couple of days on preston docks, i wouldnt say we were completeley ready on the bike scale of things, but 100% ready to r0ll with general fitness. (everyones in the same boat though huh)

Everyone turns up to the first one all pumped and smiling ready to rock the new kit and bikes from the new sponsors.  Mine this year being HORSEMAN MX and SPIRAL GFX who are helping with bike parts,kit,graphics and all the essentials one needs to help the funding of racing. So i signed on friday night at Mallory and noticed i was on the front cover of the programme which was pretty cool. A little bit of drizzle over night made the track conditions pretty much perfect coome saturday.

QUALIFYING – qualifying went pretty good. Due to the little time you get I just try to 1 mistake free lap in just so i have a time recorded incase anything happens to the bike. then the remaining 4 or so laps i try to push on from that up the ladder to get a batter gate pick. So after the timing screens were all dodgy, the sheets were printed and i had 7TH fastest time which was ok. I felt good and was riding loose so i was reasonably happy with that,

MOTO 1 – First race, BAD START!! think i was 18th coming round the first lap so i had to pick  the riders off pretty quickly as the races were only 15 minutes. That was going pretty well and i was starting to close into some of the front runners. I did manage to pass a few and by the end i finished up 6TH. I was happy with my speed, so i was really looking forward to moto 2.

MOTO 2 – Another bad start (need to sort those) left me coming through the pack again. Lap 2 was in the books and i caught Ales Belis where we were battling for a lap. I made a pretty aggressive move on him by the finish line but made the pass stick. He caught me by the little bomb hole again where he cut across (unsure if it was intentional). My front wheel hit his back one and that was it i went down. I had really sharp pains going down the right side of my knee and into my calf, So i couldnt stand up. I had to wiggle off the track where the medics assesed me. After waiting for the 4×4 to cross the track and get me to the medical unit, i was finally taken in where they stripped me off to see  the damage. The crew said is was probably a stretched cruciate ligament and soft tissue damage. Also the xray at my local hospital proved nothing broken so that was good news.

at this current time (Tuesday) i have very limmited movement in my right leg, and its pretty swollen. Rest,Ice,Compression,Elevation has been on the agenda for the last couple days. Im still in a good amount of pain when i move the leg so im hoping when the swelling goes i will have some more movement in the knee. As of yet though i cant straighten it so im unable to walk,or limp for that matter.

Im more peed off about missing the 3 races over the weekend as i thought this was the year i could do well in this class.

I now sit 35th in the championship, if all goes well i should be at Culham for round 2 where my championship will start. Nothing like giving them a head start ey..

Greg

(racing picture courtesy of muddy chick photography)