Eastern Cross League: Round 17 – Snetterton, Norfolk
Sun 22 Jan 2017
Holland eighth
With the temperature struggling to get above freezing the warm up laps for the North Roaders were a bit of a misnomer. The course was divided in to two halves, one with ground still frozen including some off camber and a steep short ascent (rideable by some, but run by most), and a very muddy half with lots of turns and plenty of opportunities for riders to fall.
First up were John McDowall, Dave Kiely and Tim Brown in the Vet50+. John and Tim both got off to a good start but disaster struck early for John with his chain coming off on the second lap. Despite his best efforts to get the chain back on at the course side John only seemed to make matters worse and shortly afterwards walked to the pits for a disappointing “DNF” to end the season along with one mangled chain. Tim, however, was still going strong and rode a steady race, finishing in 29th place. Dave meanwhile was also having mechanicals of his own stopping in the pits in lap one to put more pressure in the rear tyre before riding on to finish 55th.
Next up was Bryan in the Vet40s. During the first corners of the race the main aim became avoiding falling riders as the mix of slippery mud and fast sprints from the line resulted in inevitable chaos. Bryan avoided the worst and was advancing through the field steadily from 12th up to 7th over the first few laps. Seemingly he had his tyre pressure dialled in and was finding grip in corners where others could not. For the last two laps he was battling with three riders for positions 5 to 8, but in the last lap Bryan slipped back a little, finally running out of steam after keeping pace with people he’d been a distance behind all season. He crossed the line in 8th 1:41 down on the leader, in what was definitely his best performance of the season.
Bryan Holland