Ever Get The Feeling You Weren't Really Wanted?

Xscape Series Races 3 & 4
Glasgow
7th & 8th July

You’d have thought, given that they appear to attract fewer paying customers than a Japanese suicide pilot had willing volunteers, when 180 of the countries best racers turned up they might have made a bit of an effort. It’s not like I expected the unrolling of a red carpet or anything as dramatic, indeed their white one is clearly far superior to every other one on our island. What I didn’t expect however was to be made to feel a bit of a nuisance, an inconvenience, a pain in the rear end.

Clearly poor planning was an issue. The facilities event co-ordinator (yes, unbelievably they really do have one) obviously failed to consider the real implications of the best part of 600 people turning up to either race, support, finance or spectate. Which, in turn, led to the farcical, not to mention dangerous, situation that engulfed the corridor between the bar facilities (no outside food) and the exit. An exit that was obstructed by skis, boots, bags, poles, chairs, bodies, the commentary booth and a timing board all sardined between a humungous staircase. Add to this a lack of seating facilities for anyone who was intending to consume anything but bar food and a security guard who took over zealous to a new and all to extreme level and you can feel the volcano of frustration preparing to explode.

By god that Security man was keen. I can’t believe that the job description demanded the ruthless, single dimensional focus of the Terminator, the charisma levels of a daisy or the people skills of Darth Vador but fair play to the fella, he gave it his very best shot. Heaven only knows what he’d have done had he been issued with a light sabre. Indeed, after watching him irritate people all morning the sight of him tipping four pairs of Atomics from the wall to the floor (two of which were mine) nearly pushed me over the edge. He has no idea of quite how close he came to pushing up the aforementioned daisy.

And so to the racing. Saturday’s courses were direct contrasts of one another with a relatively straight course in the morning followed by a second much more technical one at lunchtime. Jordan overcame a dodgy first three gates to string two decent runs together and claimed 2nd place. Nathan Breese went one better and stormed to victory in the junior mini category.

In the Children’s race Telford’s representatives missed out with Ashley Breese compiling a brace of dnf’s whilst Ben Cooper, after a great 1st run, imploded on run 2 falling at Gate 3 and skiing the rest of the course like he’d been twin tagged by Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis.

In the afternoon dual slalom race Telford managed to squeeze through round 1, despite a hefty barracking from the rogues representing Hemel and a somewhat backcountry 4th run from the heart stopping Mr Cooper. Round 2 proved a level too far however and whilst the oppositions superior skiing may have played a substantial part in our defeat I have reason to believe my foursome were looking at an early exit in order to minimise the time delay between prize giving and the all you can eat Chinese.

With trophies collected, refuelling was now the only issue and, oh my life, the waiter had the shock of his life when yours truly shuffled through the entrance. The cunning earlier decision to send the slimline Mrs F to pre book a table had lulled them into a false sense of security and the restaurant manager gulped visibly and expired a bead of sweat as he guided us past the buffet whilst simultaneously calculating if that pallet of black bean sauce he’d had delivered yesterday was going to survive the next hour and a half. The Scottish Poultry industry called an emergency minutes’ silence, then switched to crisis overtime as the chicken curry took the kind of beating Frank Bruno took from Iron Mike Tyson and the national reserve of spare ribs plummeted like the Stock Market on Black Wednesday. The lager wasn’t bad either.

Sunday morning saw frustrations reach a new peak. With fewer seats available than during the final round of musical chairs, equipment having to be dumped in a conference room and Robosecurityman refreshed for another battle I was always going to be a lot closer to resembling Hulk than I ever was to David Banner.

On the snow, Jordan produced another solid, if unspectacular brace of runs to claim 3rd place in the Mini 1 category. In Mini 2 Nathan Breese recovered from a subdued first run to blast back in run 2 to claim 2nd place. Ashley claimed 3rd in chi 1 with two runs that should move him closer to the front of the field by the time we get to Castleford. Man of the day however was Ben Cooper, who produced his best racing pair of runs to place well up the overall field.