The top of the Fort William track was as smooth as a babies bum! Fresh from some serious maintenance from a hard working Nevis Range team in the weeks previous. Some berms were even made from concrete... it was like riding a pump track, shame this all ended after the board walk. Rocks, rocks and more rocks were on the cards, the track had been redirected at the top with some freshly built sections which were soft and wet. The track was as fast as ever and was riding super well. The middle had the usual technical woods which was wet all weekend, a complete contrast to the rest of the track. Picking your line through the roots and ruts could save you lots of time. The end of the track had been redirected slightly and it was extremely difficult to carry your speed coming into the motor way. The motor way was smooth and fast and set you up for the high speed jumps into the finish arena.

Saturday practice Tom and I got a good few runs in early so we could scope our lines out - the track was quite smooth after all the work that had been done to get it ready for the summer riding season. As we knew it would be getting a lot rougher we had a long lunch and did another two runs later on in the afternoon, so that’s six in total, which is quite tiring on the 6 minute track! Due to the track only really being finished on Friday huge holes appeared in the new soft areas which were a killer on your arms, as Tbag found out! After practice runs following Tom I felt really confident for a good result.

Sunday we headed to the race early and set up the Mojo pit area. The queues weren't too bad as I think the track had hurt everybody the day before, so most people were happy to just get one practice run in before qualifying. Tom was first up for qualifying, with the Senior category being the largest field with 60-odd riders. He came down with a steady time which placed him 17th for race runs. Next was my turn. I got into the flow of the track and felt pretty quick coming down into the finish. Unfortunately this is where my run stopped going well and actually ended pretty badly. My front wheel hit a rogue rock coming down the fast shoot and I got high-sided, landing on my head and neck. Not happy as I was probably 10 seconds off the finish line. After hitting the deck at 100mph I hobbled back to the van and went to get checked out by the medic - who said I should probably sit out race runs, but after a quiet hour in the van sleeping I decided to do a steady run to try and get some points.

Tom's first visit to Fort William ended pretty well with a solid 21st position in senior. I kept it steady and got down without any other incidents and placed 6th. Rachel won the Elite Female cat with Clair Buchar in 2nd and Jess Stone in 3rd. Chris Kovarik won the Elite mens, with Dan Atherton 2nd and Ben Reid in 3rd.

Big thanks to Ash who fixed broken bikes all weekend!

Aimee

Pictures by Ian Linton @ www.ianlinton.com and Tom Wheeler