TAFF BUGGY TRAILS
Practice weekend 08 - 09 03 03
The weekend should have been dulled be the terrible weather, but it wasn't. the transport was ok and the burger van was in attendance, just a thought, but how come Jason can get a burger van for a practice day, but Nacc can't get one for their best course on a race day,
Combe Sydenham.
The idea as far as I can see is to practice, but there's a little more to it than that, it's also when the course org and design get to test out and run in their latest creations. On the Saturday it rained and drizzled all day, not to bad, but throw a 20+ mph wind in for shits and giggles and you've got wet cold muddy riders. I heard no complaints about the weather though. There was the odd complaint about the course not being marked properly though.
The Sunday consisted of two timed runs, the first being based around the original course with some alteration at the top across the field, ie burmed corners and a cut into the hill side, to incorporate a step down/track jump down the wall out of the field. There had been some major reworking form the field to the first track where the ambulance parks, including jumps burms and a lot of rocks, take a look at the video.
The remainder is basically the same apart from a new traverse after the gate and before the grassy drop shown left. The new course used for the second run continued on past the drop and followed the fence line to a choice of 2 large step downs. There was a chicken run round to the left, but this was only open in practice. Due to the conditions there wasn't enough speed to attempt either, in the dry however no such excuses will do as the run in is fast. After the step down it's a sprint to the finish down a series of undulating grassy rises and drops. The finish of course was co-located with a burnt out car.
02 09 01
The course was another good one, enjoyed by us all. It started on a grassy
field crossing over a small bank a few times which proved trickier than it
looked, then straight off a 1m high drop.
Around a left hander and a steep bank into a right hander and left
again over some big rocks, then another left and a right onto a flatter
more open section which wound its way down round some dodgy off camber
corners. More smaller rocky sections and a few stream crossings.
It then went around a big tree over a drop off with a dodgy landing and
then flat out on open grass with a couple of corners and a few more stream
crossings.
Worst crash of the day, we all came off quite lightly on this course
especially considering the top section. The most that was managed was Stu
planting a pedal on the bottom stream crossing.Admin nightmare that
would go to all three of us for switching to mud tyres on a dry course.
(It did rain though).
