2009 International Welsh 2 Day Enduro

We finished the Welsh!!!

First time in 4 years we completed the Welsh 2 Day. Bike was awesome - we were a bit nervous about its handling after jacking up the suspension last week and having very little time to test and set it up. Bill Bradford looked at it Thursday morning in the work area, made a few damping adjustments and the bike's handling was spot on. Well chuffed!

Made a lot of changes after the Brechfa to the engine as well. Bike absolutely ripped after the carb, exhaust and ignition changes we made and the 540 pulled like a rampant tractor!!! 

We surprised everyone (including ourselves) on the special tests both days by posting top 3 times on 4 out of the 5 tests. What pleased us more than anything was getting to within 2 seconds of Simon Bradford's times on 2 of the 5 minute Abbey tests, four seconds on the Cwmwythig test and 8 seconds on the six minute Church farm test. Simon is in a class of his own and is the benchmark by which the rest of us measure ourselves. 

Don't mention the last test at Cwmwythig though where we finished 4rth fastest - 22 seconds behind Simon, who showed us all how it should be done - safe, smooth and very, very quick.

After experiencing a good day on the tests on Thursday which would have left us in second position, 15 seconds behind the leader (Simon Bradford) and 49 seconds up on 3rd placed David Williams, we experienced some bad luck on the Myheryn stage where the rear moose broke up and decided to jump out of our rear tyre, leaving us stranded by the windmills.

A very nice sportsman rider promptly stopped and offered us a tube, levers, a portable gas canister and a helping hand. We shortly got the tube inflated, strapped the damaged tyre with 12 large zip ties and nursed the bike to the checkpoint - 8 minutes down on time but still in the event. Shortly after the check the tyre totally disintegrated and we basically rode about a mile down the road to Terry, Geth and Trigg and the service van on the rim. We then  stuck a spare moose in and an old tyre we used in the Brechfa on.

 The 8 minute time loss dropped us down to a disappointing 9th position overall on Day 1. 

The Abbey check turned out to be tight on time and many of the frontrunners dropped time here including Graham Jones, Gareth Andrew and Alun Caio Davies who each dropped a minute and the Smith brothers and Chapmans who dropped 2. Cleaning this check cheered us up a bit after our Myheryn disappointment and put us in a positive mindset for the Abbey Test where we finished 3rd to Gareth Andrew and Simon Bradford, 4 seconds down.

Friday started well for us with a good Abbey test leaving us in second position 1.7 seconds down on Simon's time. Cleaning the slacker Abbey check we arrived at Cwmwythig just before the rain. We had concerns that the new moose we fitted for day 2 was a bit tight and would have the same effect as running too much pressure in the rear tyre. This would reduce grip on the slippery grassy Cwmwythig surface. This proved to be the case and we ended up sliding out on a fast right hander and hitting a fencing post side on. This spun us around and we ended up facing the wrong direction. We ended up 22 seconds down on the class leader but still 4rth quickest on that test. 

The rain came as we reached the Splashes but the rest of the time checks went well with most of the Championship class cleaning them all, including the notoriously challenging Irfon Check which was this year slacker than usual leaving us with 10 minutes spare. David Williams, Alun Davies and Martin Chapman had a bit of bad luck here though when they followed the previous day's route marking, ended up in a deep bog and lost time. A disappointing way for the three to end this year's Welsh.

We were happy to finish 3rd on Friday - some 7 seconds down on Gareth Andrew in 2nd and a further 23 seconds behind event winner Simon Bradford. Over

all we moved up from 9th on Thursday to 6th on Friday - 9 seconds behind David Williams who dropped 7 minutes on that last Irfon Check. Not good but it could have been much worse if it wasn't for the kindness of a fellow competitor who helped us out.

Without the moose misfortune on Thursday which cost us 8 minutes we would have finished in a great 2nd position against top quality competition!!!  That has given us a heap of confidence and has made this year's Welsh 2 day a really good experience for us. Including Terry who was beginning to think that he was jinxing us at the welsh!!!  

Finally, congratulations to Simon and Neil for winning the Welsh for their 3rd time and Gareth and George on their superb ride into second place. Roll on next years' Welsh 2 Day. Can't wait!

WELSH TWO DAY  2009  RESULTS

SIDECAR EXPERTS

 

No     Name                                           RT  SPTest1   SPTest2   SPTest3    Pen Total

1   1 Simon Bradford / Neil James          0    05:49.4     08:01.2     04:10.5      1081.12

                                                                0    03:52.0     07:28.3                       1761.47

2   9 Gareth Andrew / George Edgvean   1    06:07.2     08:03.0     04:07.9      1158.16

                                                                0    03:54.6     07:45.3                       1858.05

3   8Graham Jones / Simon Rogers        1    06:22.9     08:22.1     04:20.9      1205.9

                                                                0    04:00.3     07:52.0                       1918.16

4   3Nigel Smith / Richard Smith             2    06:33.6     09:40.0     04:24.3      1357.89

                                                                0    04:09.0     08:06.4                       2093.25

5   6David Williams / Graham McPhee   0    06:02.5     08:29.1     04:27.2      1138.88

                                                                7    04:01.7     07:53.2                       2273.79

6   7Aled Evans / Iwan Evans                 8    05:58.6     08:05.1     04:12.1      1575.84

                                                                0    03:54.5     07:53.0                       2283.4

7   10Martin Chapman / C Chapman      2    06:45.3     08:53.0     04:43.3      1341.68

                                                                4    04:17.9     08:26.6                       2346.14

8   2Alun Davies / Rhys George              1    06:12.4     08:31.3     04:23.1      1206.85

                                                               10   04:11.7     08:04.7                        20 2563.2

9 11Paul Manning / Roger Tuck             0   06:35.3     08:36.7      04:28.4       20 1200.33

                                                                     04:16.0     08:13.6 .

SIDECAR CLUBMAN

No   Name                                            RT SPTest1   SPTest2    SPTest3     Pen Total

1 18 Roger James / Sam Wilk                0   06:42.1     08:44.5      04:50.6      1217.2

                                                                0   04:27.0     08:36.8                        2001.06

2 26 Anne Giles / John Giles                 10  07:31.0     09:10.6      05:11.7      1913.3

                                                                4   04:31.6     08:39.8                        2944.69

3 23 Richard Nevill / Peter Williamson    8   07:13.3     09:02.6      04:45.4      1741.22

                                                                8   04:32.1     08:37.4                        3010.67

4 22 TBA / Colin Solley                          11  08:48.9     09:58.1      05:14.1      2101.06

                                                               13  05:20.6     09:29.6                        3771.21

5 19 Arthur Walton / James Georges      6   06:38.9     08:55.2      04:41.9     1576.02

                                                                     04:30.2      08:32.6                       20 .

6 25 Alistair Nevill / Sharon Nevill           8   07:14.9      09:19.7     04:58.2      1772.75

                                                                     04:36.4      08:55.2 .

7 21 Neil Clarke / Robert Whaney         12  08:01.9      10:03.1      05:12.6      2117.61

                                                                     05:46.0      09:12.7 .

8 27 Eirian Rees / Jason Davies            30 10:25.8       09:43.2     09:01.1      3550.06

                                                                     04:55.9      09:09.7 .

9 24 James Cliff / Adam Dear                      07:02.1      08:47.0     05:01.3

                                                                     04:30.6      08:43.3                        20 .

10 29 Tom Powell / Mike Curnow                09:13.2      08:52.4      04:48.6

                                                                     04:33.1      08:47.7 .

12 17 Richard Chandler / Liz Millett             06:44.8

                                                                 0  04:25.8      08:32.8 .

13 28 Gareth Hampson/John Fillingham     09:14.6

                                                                     04:48.6      09:05.5