L a t e s t  n e w s ..... Rachel Adcock and Gerard Flahive win both races at Scottish Dry Slope Championships ...

'The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams' (Eleanor Roosevelt).

A few weeks ago the slow trickle of entries to the Gloucester Club National and the fact that the Regional race had been cancelled, caused a lot of worry down in the west country.  By race day, the worry had gone and lots of phone calls meant that a healthy field started this race, one of three Club Nationals that did not come as part of a Grand Prix weekend.  With none of this seasons major race winners, male or female taking part, it was a fairly open race, in both races.

The course, set by Headley Beavis, was smooth and yet challenging and the sting in the tail at the bottom of the course gave a number of racers a few headaches in trying to negotiate their way down.  Rachel Adcock, leader after the first two runs was the most notable casualty in the female race and her demise meant that Alice Thelwell was finally able to make the step up to the top of the podium after being in the shadow of Rachel Adcock and Sega Fairweather in the last few seasons. Local racer, Anouska Callander had high hopes of doing well on her home slope but failed to finish any of the runs.  The course did see a number of spectacular falls including Collette Carpenters.

Alice Thelwell's took victory ahead of two local girls, Rowan Vernon and Emily Goddard in the overall race.  Thelwell was behind Adcock on the first two runs but a mistake on the final run saw Adcock miss the last gate, handing victory to her club mate.  With the first seven all within a second of the winner, the female race was a close fought affair.  Abby Clifford and Christina Pennock took fourth equal with a hundredth of a second separating the two on each run.  Colette Carpenter took sixth a shade behind the others and Lauren Cadman dropped to seventh after a poor final run.

In the men's race, David Hatcher took the spoils ahead of Dan Wyatt.  These two were comfortably ahead of Lloyd Papantoniou in third, Andrew Watson in fourth and Hugh Wilson in fifth.  Despite being a late entry, David Tee managed to take sixth with local racer Alex Jeal showing some form to take seventh.  The battle between the top two was a case of catch up for a slightly jaded Wyatt.  Hatcher took the first two runs and although Wyatt woke up on the third run, he had too much to make up to overtake Hatcher.

In the age groups, the first four places overall in the male race were taken by different age groups: David Hatcher, Senior; Dan Wyatt, Junior 2; Lloyd Papantoniou, Junior 1 and Andrew Watson, Children 2.  Children 1 was won by Niall Flahive (24th overall) and Keith Parker took the Masters victory.  Flahive was joined on the podium by Max Wheatman and Tom Walsh in Children 1.  In Children 2 Taylor Waters and Greg Straw joined Watson on the podium.  Papantoniou was joined by David Tee and Alex Jeal in Junior 1 and in the older age group, Dan Wyatt was ahead of Hugh Wilson and Peter Calvert. Ian Blair took second senior ahead of Ian Johnson. Chris Gardner and Ric Savage placed second and third in the Masters race.

In the female race Junior 2 age group took the first three places overall.  Abby Clifford took Junior 1 ahead of Collette Carpenter  and Lauren Cadman.  Hannah Knowles, Kirsty Hatcher and Heidi Parker were the three top Children 2 girls and Olivia Parker took the spoils in the younger age group ahead of Alexandra Greasby and Jeni Thomas. Kirsty Stevens took the Senior female race ahead of Angela Hiller.  In the masters race Janet Earnshaw Hamilton won just ahead of Sheila Driscoll and Lisa Webster.

The mini's races were as highly contested as the main races.  In the girls race, Stephanie Davies took victory ahead of Flora Peel and Sarah Lambden.  In the boys race Max Moss took victory ahead of Ashley Breese and Michael Knowles.

For full results please click here

Racer Ready was at this race and has pictures from all three runs of all the racers.  To be sent thumbnails of the racers, please click here.  Please mention the name of the racer.