Schwalbe British 4X Series Round 1 – race report

The following is a report from Bikesoup sponsored rider, Scott Beaumont…

Well what a fantastic weekend. Yeti Racing UK were racing in the first round of the 2012 Schwalbe British 4X Series at Leamington. It was, without doubt, one of the best mountain bike events ever here in the UK. Huge crowds, increased rider numbers and blue skies will make this event go down in history.

For Yeti Racing UK, it was our debut event with Scott Beaumont beginning his defence of his number 1 plate in the Elites and Dave Richardson; after such a dominant season in 2011 in the Masters category, winning every race, moving to the Seniors to give himself more of a challenge.

Practice on Saturday went very well. Both riders had the track dialled and with some gate practice during the week at Redditch and Birmingham BMX tracks, Scott and Dave were feeling confident for the race on Sunday.

Dave’s first outing for Yeti Racing UK

Race day for Dave is always the day he counts down to. He takes his racing very seriously and his preparations for this race were perfect. He started the day with 3 wins in his motos to qualify through to the quarter finals with no problem at all. In the quarter final, he took the lead from the start and looked a safe bet until the last straight when he made a small mistake on the first double of the pro line and he had to roll the second double which dropped him back to 2^nd. Still enough to move through to the semi finals.

In the semi final Dave made a great gate but got closed out in the first turn. He held second all the way and booked his place in the final. In the final he had the third gate pick and took gate three. It was going to be tough from there. As the gate dropped Dave was in contention but entered the first turn in third. Then an awesome dive to the inside moved him into second place. He held this all the way to the finish and took the second step on the podium. A fantastic ride from him and some great racing through the day.

Boom Boom’s defence of the title

Scott comes into 2012 with the number 1 plate on his Yeti and the target on his back that everyone in Elites want that number 1. Leamington is an interesting track for the elites. With only a couple of pedal strokes out of the gate and small technical double jumps all the way to the first turn, the elites are always so evenly matched. Gate choice will always turn out to be vital.

In the motos Scott won his first race, second in the second race and won his third moto. His second place was in one of the races of the day where Scott came from the outside gate 4 and hounded Tomas Slavik all the way to the finish where the two riders crossed the line next to each other.

Scott then went on to win his quarter final and the semi final to make it to the final having just dropped one race during the whole day. Unfortunately the second place finish in that moto meant that he only got the third gate pick and lining up on gate three was going to make the final extremely tough.

Scott made the best gate of his day and powered down the first straight level with Tomas Slavik and Lewis Lacey on the two gates inside of him, but just could not get to the first turn ahead. Lewis rode Scott wide to hold onto second place and this unfortunately let Nathan Parssons through aswell. Scott got going again but just could not get back past any of them and finished in 4^th position.

4^th does not really do Scott’s day justice, but he was in a final, on track where anyone could have won. However there were so many positives to take from the day. With fantastic track speed, Scott will definitely be fighting for a podium position at the first round of the 4X ProTour in 2 weeks time in Houffalize, Belgium.

Full results and podium photo here.

The next race for Yeti Racing UK will be the first round of the 2012 4X ProTour in Houffalize, Belgium, April 14^th. Both Scott and Dave will be racing under the floodlights in front of the passionate Belgium crowds. Full report from that race on Monday 16^th.

Many thanks to all of Yeti Racing UK’s sponsors and fans. Yeti Cycles, Fox Europe, Schwalbe, Trixter, Fox Suspension, Formula, Fenwicks, Accelerade, Sun Ringle, RapidRacerProducts, USE, Bikesoup, Race Face, E*13, SDG, Mojo, Shimano, Park Tools, ODI Grips.