Gorrick 12 Hour - National Endurance Series Round 5

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BY: Ben Thomas

Published: 29th August, 2013




The August bank holiday is all about the Gorrick 12 hour for the Mountain Trax staff and sponsored riders. It’s the only day the shop closes apart from at Christmas time. As a big sponsor of Gorrick races Mountain Trax normally attend with a huge team and this year was no different with 6 teams entered, plus 2 solo riders.  
 
The solo event was the final round of the National Endurance Series so the pressure was on Tim to repeat his victory of 2012 and take the title again. The race was another opportunity for Tim to show off his 12 Hour National Champions jersey. Ben was racing in the team of 4 category with 3 good friends John Whittington, George Budd and Scott McCarron to form Team Mountain Trax - Vauxhall Motors and Friends! We were lucky enough to have the Vauxhall Vivaro team van parked up in the arena and were setup in the Mountain Trax ezy up making race logistics as easy as possible.

 

The race venue at Minley in Hampshire has very loamy soil which was good news as the heavy downpours on Saturday were quickly soaked up and much to our amazement there was still dust on track during the first lap! The 8 mile circuit had several tough climbs but rewarded with fantastic flowing singletrack trails which required speed and precision especially as the loose conditions returned after a few laps and big roots were ready to catch out those not 100% focused. The bike of choice for the day was the full suspension Scott Spark 900 RC which helped save energy over the rough trails.

 

Here's Ben's view from the 4 man category. "We had some tough competition from another local team who arguably had the advantage as they new the circuit far better than my 3 team mates
and this showed on the first rotation of riders. We lost a bit of time early on although we did get the first lap glory... just! By the second rotation the yo-yoing began with us overtaking our rivals every couple of laps and then losing the lead after another 2 laps. I've never been in a 12 hour race which has been so close – it’s actually pretty stressful! Normally we get a lead and just build on it! We continued to swap places back and forth.

 

On my fifth and what should have been final lap I had another dual with our rivals’ top rider Isaac Pucci. This 19 year old has some real natural talent and was determined to drop me. There was no way I'd allow it though, at every opportunity he'd unleash a fierce acceleration but I'd quickly claw my way back onto his wheel. What was comical was that we were riding so fast during acceleration and then completely backing off the pace playing cat and mouse that people we'd been lapping would then re catch us and ask if they could overtake. We were still together at the end of that lap but I'd burnt quite a few matches. It was the first time that the teams had been even on time and Team Mountain Trax - Vauxhall Motors and Friends thought we would have an opportunity to pull out a gap over their slightly slower riders. Unfortunately our rivals swapped the order they were riding in, dropping their weakest rider. Even so George and John pulled out a 1 minute 45 lead heading into the final lap. We also swapped the team order opting not to send out Scott but to send out me instead. No pressure then!

 

I'd burnt so many matches I was convinced I was going to get caught by Issac. By the half way point my lap time was already a minute slower but I had time gaps confirming I still had about a minutes lead. I was convinced I'd be able to recognise his lights behind me but what if he switched his lights off on the fireroads so I wouldn't see him?! I rode sensibly worried about crashing and entered the final piece of singletrack still with a good lead, my Exposure Diablo and Reflex lights lighting up the trails. Crossing the line my teammates were already cheering, I punched the air, we'd done it, we won! Just 1 minute ahead after 12 hours 9 minutes of racing!"

 

Here’s Tim’s thoughts on the solo race. “Torq in Your Sleep was the final round of the 2013 UK Endurance Series and I was keen to retain the title I won in 2012. Having missed one of the earlier rounds I had to score highly here so the pressure was on. My plan was to try and make up time on the singletrack sections and then try and take the many short, steep climbs nice and steady. For the first six hours I felt really good and opened up a nice gap. Around 6pm though I hit a really bad patch, I struggled to eat and felt like I was close to blowing up, which would have been a big problem in a 12 hour event! I immediately backed off the pace to try and took on some extra food to try and recuperate a bit. I guess it’s inevitable you’re going to have bad patches in a 12 hour event but I started to panic that I was going too slowly and would get caught at any second. Fortunately I came round towards the end and finished strongly to take the win on the day which also meant I took the overall win in the series.”  
 
Thanks to Scott McCarron, John Whittington and George Budd for being part of the team for the weekend and putting in some fantastic lap times to secure another win for Mountain Trax – Vauxhall Motors.

 

 

A big thanks to all our fantastic sponsors for their very generous support.

 



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Ben Thomas

Team manager of Mountain Trax - Vauxhall Cycling.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Mountain-Trax-Vauxhall-Motors-Cycling-Team/330790256947713

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