Pendle IR

Rain, what rain? After the deluge that soaked everybody at the race on the Saturday, Sunday dawned with clouds but dry and the sun shining through! Little did one know that a storm was brewing! Team races are always tense and fraught yet it does bring out the best in camaraderie as well as competitiveness. Some racers attack more when they can see the racer on the other course out of the corner of their eye, yet others get spooked by this. While the racers put on a great spectacle, the evil of disagreeing with a gate judge's opinion also raised its head.

Thirteen teams lined up in two groups with the top four in each to qualify for the knock out stages. In the League A, Eastern Region A (comprising Richard Coupe, Chris McCarthy, Jessie Bowling, Laura Bowling, Craig Wright, Gerard Flahive and Georgie Hunt) took a clean sweep of all their races to top the group. With North West B (comprising David Tee, Hannah Knowles, Sam Wharton, Marcus Orrell, Brad Morgan, James Lawton and Paul Hothersall), London and South East (comprising Paul Telling, Jo Ogden, Kath Barber, Ben Clark, Frankie Simonds, Lloyd Papantoniou and Marc Telling) and the South West (comprising Emily Goddard, Rowan Vernon, Jack Chew, Alex Jeal, Harry Bannister, Alasdair Holbourn and Colin Armstrong) teams all taking four wins and two loses, they had to race off against the clock to determine the seeding for the knock out stages. North West took this ahead of the LSERSA team leaving the South West team in the fourth qualifying spot. The strong LSERSA team struggled against some of the lesser teams with elementary mistakes in the round robin races.

In league B, the strong North West A team (comprising Dan Wyatt, Bill Latham, Tom Kenny, Lindsey Allen, Joanna Ryding, Andy Roose and David Ryding) took a clean sweep of the races to move into the knock out stages as one of the favourites. North East (comprising Alistair White, Dan Evans, Michelle Stirk, Lesley Mearns, Adam King, Chris White and Chris Pyle) took second with East Midlands (comprising Peter Thelwell, Alice Thelwell, Jamie Adcock, Sam Trigg, Jez Wood, Rachel Adcock and Benn Hall) and West Midlands (comprising Piers Cadman, George Crane, Abby Clifford, Peter Kneen, James Hornsby, Lauren Cadman and Matt Bradley) taking third and fourth in the league.

The first round of the knock out races saw three of the League A teams advance, all quite comfortably with North West A upholding the honour of League B! The semi finals were a close run event especially the North West A against LSERSA. This was a race that would have graced any final yet the two evenly balanced team were split by the finest of margins with David Ryding (North West) holding off Marc Telling (LSERSA) and taking the judges decision! In the other semi final, Eastern Region beat North West B.

In the third fourth place race, LSERSA held their nerves to beat the North West B team while the North West A team comfortably held on to beat the Eastern Region team in straight legs.

The day was marred by racers disagreeing with the decisions of volunteer gate judges. While nobody likes to be disqualified, it takes a brave person to volunteer to gate judge at a high pressured event like the Inter Regional. There is a commitment needed from racers to adhere to decisions, no matter how much they dislike it. On the other side there is also a need from officials to be properly trained and positioned so that there can be no doubt as to decisions. Training and respect are key elements to successful racing! Foul language has no place in sport!

If you would like to see the thumbnails of the pictures from the day please click here, please remember to mention the name of the racer!