Two days of glorius sunshine greeted the visitors to the 2nd round of the ACU British Enduro Championship. It was a sharp contrast to the weather in the 1998 Hafren Enduro that had to be cut short due to horrendous rain. Despite of the dry weather though this years course was still very wet due a very wet summer.
Two special stages were a welcome sight for the majority of competitors. The motocross test was a typical grassy test with lots of sharp corners while the Cross Country Test was a real test of rider ability with a variety of terrain. Both tests were moist and slippery in the morning and took most of saturday for a dry, grippy line to appear. Transponders were used to time the tests for the first time ever in Enduros in the UK.
After a slow start on Saturday morning I gradually moved up throughout the day to finish in 4th behind the Knight brothers and Rob Sartin in third. The cross country test suited me well but the moto-x test was a bit tight for my liking. David and Juan, as usual were a class apart but Rob Sartin in third was within sight as I finished only 17seconds behind. I looked forward to Sunday and the possibility of claiming back the deficit. However on Sunday Rob elected not to ride. He had made his point on the Saturday - that there was still life in the old dog.
The first test on Sunday went well as I finished 2nd behind David. The Cross Country tests also went a lot better as I kept within sight of Juan in a strong 3rd place. I improved on my best Saturday time by nearly 10 seconds. Unfortunately Juan was a little bit too quick for me and I finished 12 seconds adrift. A good weekend on the whole though and the Hafren Club should be congratulated for raising the benchmark for Enduros in the UK. For the results visit Bob Mullin's website: enduro.freeserve.co.uk