The first round of the ever popular Pearce cycles winter series kicked off at Hopton last weekend. Would you believe the series has been running for seven years now!! With a huge turnout of riders the stage was set for some fast paced racing. The new forestry commission uplift regulations were in effect so transport suffered a few small teething problems.

Conditions over the weekend were very muddy with many a vehicle needing a tow to escape the churned up finishing field come the end of the day. Up on the track and in the woods it was carnage; areas of grip for your tyres were few and far between; in places braking was out of the question as your momentum was all that was keeping you upright. The over night rain made the roots super slick and the mud wet and loose resulting in technical sections of the track becoming almost impossible to ride clean but great fun to attempt.



Joe Smith suffered a slip on some roots further up the course which knocked him off line, but was flying foot off and flat out into these final woods; earning himself a spot on the podium in second place with an insanely fast time of 3.18 only fractions (0.796 to be exact) of a second off Sam Dale in first. Fellow Junior rider Jack Geoghegan (astonhill/ancillotti) pushed hard but a slip saw him cross the line in 9th.



A special mention for Pete Robinson racing for the first time in Youth. Against some stiff competetion he put in a very strong ride; at one point crossing the line in first, but come second runs unlucky crashes saw him bag a well deserved 18th. New team rider Stefan Thomas used his local knowledge for the best and took a well deserved fourth in Youth with an impressive run time of 3.35.650.



Nick Geoghegan and Matt Kemp (astonhill/ancillotti) are racing in the super competitive Expert category this year and were looking good all weekened, Nick pushed hard in the tricky conditions taking 12th. Matt smoothed his way down the track to 14th with a time of 3.41.921.



Well done guys for a fantastic weekend of riding, roll on the next race in the series at Bringewood in only a few weeks time.