The Hawkstone International at the weekend provided the first opportunity of the season to get some race practice in, competing in the EMX 125 which was full of top riders. It gave a good benchmark as to where I am having had nearly three months out following a fracture to my shoulder at the start of November and only half a dozen practice sessions under my belt.
RACE 1
Got a decent start, on the second lap made a pass for 12th place but got my back wheel clipped coming out the corner and ended up under two bikes leaving me dead last. Battled back to 20th only to crash on the last corner and lose 5 places.
RACE 2
Got a good start and was running 10th but the race got red flagged when fellow racer Ashden Barlow unfortunately had a bad crash and suffered serious back injuries, really hope he makes a speedy recovery and is back racing soon. Got another decent start from the restart but made a mistake and ended up with a big crash leaving me half a lap behind. Battled through the field and managed to get up to 20th.
RACE 3
Got another good start and rode pretty well, just seemed to hit a bit of wall mid race and dropped the pace for a couple of laps but then managed to pick it up again towards the end finishing 11th.
Overall, not the finishing position I would have liked however plenty of positives to take away and work on. I was pretty happy with how I rode in general on at tough track, my preparation and fitness was pretty good in general given the short time I have been back on the bike, definitely staring to reap some of the benefits from working with CRS over the last few months both mentally after my crashes in the first two races and physically over the whole day with practice, qualifying and three races in a short day.
Back to the hard work and preparation for the next race.
