As the sprint was an early morning event I travelled up to York the night before and stayed with SPLOT Helen, leaving me with a fairly short drive to the event on Saturday.
Unfortunately, with many of the students either still doing exams or in post exam party mode, plus the Polaris being on the same weekend numbers were fairly low for Andrew Windrum’s Driffield Airfield Sprint race.
I’d had had a look at the map and aerial photography before hand and knew that it was a 4WD/tank training area with lots of holes, and it was a shame the rain of the last few days had filled them with water.
Riding to the start in the sunshine, there was a very stiff head wind, but at least the recent rain was keeping the dust down. I started and immediately struggled to get into the scale of the map – 1:5000 – and overshot the first control losing 30 seconds. I rode well on 2 & 3 but on the way to number 4 I started to get fed up with having to ride around all the huge ‘puddles’ on the tank tracks so decided to ride through one. Not a good plan, it was about 3 feet deep and I exited the bike over the handlebars to a very wet landing as the water stopped me in my tracks.
Out of 4 and disaster: I headed out of the semi butterfly in the wrong direction riding for 15, instead of 5 (as did Andy Conn). It was only when I got there I realised what I had done. Back across the map then to the real number 5 and then the long run on the perimeter road to 5. I then cocked up number 8, going for number 15 again and then heading to 14. I’m not sure what was going on in my head but once I realised what I had done I decided I’d lost so much time I’d turn it into a training race. So, rather than going straight to 8 I headed back towards 7 and started the leg again.
I then rode cleanly to the end catching Andy Conn at 13. We played cat and mouse to the end but my route choice round the quarry area to 16 rather than through it proved about 10 seconds slower and Andy finished just ahead of me.
Cycling back to the car, the bike was in a right state. The combination of muck, sand and water taking its toll, we wondered how on earth we could get them functioning properly again for a 3 hour score that afternoon. I even considered going off to find a jet wash. In the end I went and cleaned both myself and the bike in one of the huge tank holes and finished it off with some deftly squirted water from a bottle.
So not a great day for me, particularly after messing up number 5. It was won by Killian with Ben just behind.