Under the searing hot Quebec sun, on dusty, loose course, Mojo Orange riders had a great day of racing. For the first time this season, Canadian Riders Jeff Beatty and Evan Irvine joined the European riders at World Cup Downhill #3 in Mont Ste Anne, Canada. The legendary beast of the classic events, Ste Anne was been tamed down a bit this year, losing some of the upper rock sections in exchange for a fast, bermed up highway through the woods. The high speed sweeping corners are still out in the open however, so riders risk life and limb trying to make up time any place they can now that the technical sections are gone up top.

Qualifying went well for all of the Mojo Riders save Irvine, who suffered a flat and tore his tire from his rim, causing him to DNF. Cammelini qualified in 13th, Beatty in 30th and Stanbridge squeaked in in 68th spot.

Team Mojo Orange made a fantastic start to the 2007 race season at the first round of the Maxxis Cup International held at Gouveia, Portugal. In recent years this event has become a bit of an unofficial season opener for European based World Cup riders giving them the first taste of international race action for the new season. This year attracted the strongest field of riders yet with most of Europe’s World Cup contenders competing, the field contained no less than 5 previous world cup winners.

Our riders, Stanny and Julien, came into this event full of confidence having just been on a week long road trip to the Fox Racing Shox team camp held in the north of Italy. It’s safe to say the bikes were well dialled in and ready to race on their arrival. They were confident throughout practice with team mechanic Paul ‘ Jelly Bean’ Jones doubling up as a bus driver uplifting them to the top of the track in his now ‘mobile’ workshop to get maximum time on the track and master the racing line.

In the first round of race runs Julien almost made good his prediction with a run of 1.40.341. Whilst not sub 1.40.00 it was still the fastest time ever down the Abercarn track. Dan made a small mistake on the fast open turn near the top of the track which pushed him back to 3rd fastest.

For the second runs there were few riders at the top who managed to better their times, with so many riders the track was getting a little blown out in some places. If you stepped off the main line, it was loose!!

The end results were pretty much the same as the first runs, with Julien in 1st place and Dan in 3rd. Julien didn’t break the 1.40.00 mark but still went away with the course record. There were strong performances from the youth of Mojo, with Tom Wheeler 4th and Joe Taylor 6th in the very competitive junior category.

Official results can be found here:www.dragondownhill.com

Team Mojo enjoyed another successful weekend at the first Dragon Downhill event of the 2007 Season. With perfect weather conditions all weekend the well established Abercarn Downhill track was riding faster than ever. With a record number of 320 riders in attendance you would of expected to be struggling to get time on the track however, Jason from Dragon Downhill has invested heavily in his own buses this winter so the uplifts were working at maximum efficiency.

Julien Camellini was confident during practice that race times would break 1.40.00, bearing in mind the previous track record for its current configuration was 1.47ish then you can get an idea of his supreme confidence in his riding right now.

For 2007 Dragon Downhill has decided to introduce chainless seeding runs, seems like a crazy idea but in general it was well received by the riders on the Abercarn track. It was pointed out that we may be getting off and running at some venues so it may be limited to the steeper ones!

Both riders were understandably pleased with their performances against such a world class field of riders, Fabien confirmed later to Julien by text message that he had had what he felt was a great race run. Julien getting so close to him was a superb result for Julien, for Mojo and for Orange!

Official results can be found here:www.maxxiscup.com