Saturday 30th June
Ah, the summer months. Wimbledon, strawberries and cream, barbecues in the garden after work, Pimms and lemonade in the Members Enclosure accompanied by the sweet sound of willow striking leather, maybe even a lazy weekend picnic on parkland scorched by the sun and parched by a chronic lack of moisture.
Well no, not really. How about standing in the pouring rain, utterly drenched at the top of a ski slope, just a few metres closer than most to heavens that are opening and unleashing a torrent of precipitation that, after swamping you, sadistically decides to multiply it’s own irritation level by entrenching itself into the timing gear whilst you wait patiently getting ever wetter at the top of the slope. Will it ever stop raining?
For the convenience of travelling and the fact that it’s a close as we’ll probably ever come to a ‘home’ Club National Stoke is always the first race we all look for on the calendar. As usual Telford produced a decent turnout and with the obvious exception of Abby Clifford’s tracksuit bottoms most of us had a pretty decent day.
The minis race was dominated by Jordan, who in posting the three fastest times of the day, swept to a relatively comfortable victory. Nathan Breese ensured that Telford were again well represented on the podium with another fantastic 3rd place finish. However both boys achievements were overshadowed by Claire Ainsworth, who produced a trio of clean runs to claim victory on her national racing debut. Could her smile get any wider?
In the Girls Georgina Gould again proved her racing credentials with three of her best runs of the season to claim 15th in category and sub 200 points. Charlotte Shrimpton returned to the slope which claimed that front tooth and also produced three consistent times in claiming a creditable 11th place in the same category. Charlotte Gould endured a day that made the weather look bright with a 3rd run dnf that followed scratchy, un-Charlotte like morning. Claire Brown dazzled everyone with three great runs to claim the an excellent 6th in Chi 2 and 18th overall, a position all the more impressive given here lack of Club National experience. Female of the day however has to go to Abby Clifford, who picked herself up off the floor following a pretty hefty bottom section crash that accounted for an 18 inch tear in the side of her tracky bottoms and went on to post the fastest times in both runs 2 & 3 and claim overall and category victories.
Again, we were well represented in the boys field with Marco Furio putting aside debut nerves and a first run dnf to post a brace of promising times to collect 13th in chi 2. Joe Humfress sneaked home in front of Marco with a 12th place in category with both performances providing light at the end of Ben Cooper’s dnf tunnel. He is fast, he will get it right. The male performance of the day however goes to Ashley Breese who improved run on run over the day and so nearly claimed a win in chi, shaded into 2nd by 0.05 seconds.
Sunday 1st July – Pendle Grand Prix 2
With the WMSA Grand Prix unceremoniously moved 17 junctions up the M6 and rebranded into a 2nd NWSF race the amount of racers from Telford were inevitably low. With only four on the acceptance list this was reduced even further by Abby Clifford’s late decision to dry out from the previous day’s racing it was left to the trio of Miss Shrimpton, Gould & Gould to fly the Telford flag on the Witches Hill. Charlotte Gould’s miserable weekend ended as it had begun with a dnf but both of our chi 1 girls can be chuffed with their performances. Charlotte Shrimpton posted her best placing of the season with a super 5th place in category and 16th overall and George Gould placed 7th in category and 18th overall despite stating with bib number 40.
And no it never did stop raining.
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