The Twin Peaks weekend is one of the highlights of the summer racing tour around the UK and two of the leading lights of the Scottish racing scene produced performances that gave the aspiring racers in the field a target. Nicole Ritchie, ex British team, and Owen Vinter, current Under 18 GB Team racer, both of Glasgow racing, put in the performances that saw them take the opening day spoils from the Twin Peaks weekend.
Ritchie, a class above the rest of the field, was comfortably fastest on both runs with Lauren Rae taking second overall after Holly McKey made a mess of her first run to fall out of contention before coming back on the second run to post the second fastest time. Beth Whatford took third overall and almost overhauled Rae who had been a tenth of a second ahead of her after the first run. Robyn Walker and Madison Spence completed the top five finishers in the girls race.
While Vinter did not have it as easy as Ritchie in winning the Men’s race, he did post the fastest on both runs with Ethan Hemming, one of the few English racers to make the journey north, moving up from fourth after the first run to take second ahead of Robbie Anderson. Places two to five in the Men’s race after the first run had been separated by just over two tenths of a second. This provided a second run that was full of intrigue and spectacle as Fraser Hunter and Scott Waitt also fought to make it onto the podium.
The Men’s race had seen a blistering first run by one of the emerging talents: Lewis Calder. In his first seeded race, Calder gave notice of his intent by posting the sixth fastest time of all the men. Calder’s reputation was well known from racing in the Under 12 age group but this was a real statement of intent.
With fine margins between racers and a short course any mistake was cruelly punished on the Paul Henderson set second run. Sadly for Calder he was not able to back up his first run performance and dropped down to tenth eventually. This left Wales’s, Joe Constantine in the lead with the top five from the first run still to go.
Anderson was the first down and he posted what would be the second fastest time of the run as he looked to chase down the leading four. The pressure was on! With an advantage of 0.15 on Anderson, Hemming was next out the gate. The Midlands racer was not as fast as Anderson but had enough to take the lead by six hundredths of a second. It was nip and turk.
Fraser Hunter was next out the gate and a poor run by his expectations saw him drop into third that soon became fourth when Scott Waitt just edged him.
If Waitt thought he would stay on the podium with just Vinter to come, he would be disappointed as Vinter gave the rest of the field a lesson in how to deal with the course. Just under half a second was the gap between Vinter and the rest of the field.
The Girls age groups were won by Lauren Rae (Under 14, 2nd Overall); Robyn Walker (Under 16, 4th Overall); Beth Whatford (Under 18, 3rd Overall) and Nicole Ritchie (Senior, Race Winner).
The Men saw Lewis Calder (Under 14, 10th Overall); Robbie Anderson (Under 16, 3rd Overall); Owen Vinter (Under 18, Race Winner) and Scott waitt (Under 21, 4th Overall).
Lexi Maxwell won the Under 10 Girls race with Amber Fennel taking the Under 12 Girls race. Harry Dixon won the Under 10 Boys with Harri Hodson the Under 12 Boys race.
Full results
Women / Men
Mini Girls / Boys
Pictures from the racing are available here