This past weekend, we drove down to the South of Ireland to race a National, our first race on our new bikes. I have never ridden  anything so much like peanut butter mixed with Nutella in my life! It was crazy. By the time I got down each run, it looked like I was running 4.0 Gazzaloddi’s! All  balled up with no grip and we were running full spikes! It was rad though, the top bit was fast with a few jumps and a fly off and then it was into the tight twisty woods full of mud, ruts and roots to the bottom.

Me on a small part of the track and Matti says 'Nutella' for the camera!

There were a total of 2 girls including myself so CRC employee and rider, Michelle McMullen and I just had some fun with the peanut butter track and ripped it up all weekend. Race runs were not without some kind of adventure but I managed to beat my first run time by 5 seconds with a crash. It was so hard to stay on! Michelle was also going to try to beat her morning run but came down a while later with her rear wheel locked up with mud and debris! It was ridiculous!

Me enjoying a wee cuppa tea! 
The guys were making the gnarly track look easy as usual and I had my bets on Simmonds just because he is really good at these kind of tracks, being from the UK and all. But Chris, the wide-open-full-throttle track favorite, still managed to just bump him out by under a second for the win. Matti had a decent first run with a few mistakes and was ready to step it up for the second but had a crash and ended up off course somewhere  and came down a bit behind. But that’s what it was like out there- completely random, you never knew how you were gonna go. He still finished on the podium with a 5th.

The Intense M9 proto's fully equipped and ready for testing and racing...

Overall it was a good weekend.  1st, 2nd and 5th on the  mens podium and me with a win added to the fun. And the fans were happy to see us show up. We camped out with the CRC family and had some laughs, a few wee cups of tea and yummy sweet crepes.

Matti riding the rut that just kept getting bigger and Chris with his 'Gazzolodi' tires! 

We are back at CRC HQ and will be doing some testing the next few days. It might even be dry so should be good times. On Friday we are off to race the NPS at Fort William to further dial our bikes so I’ll probably write after that and tell you how it goes.

Special thanks to Tina and Michael for the cozy camper, Ian and Leslie for the morning porridge, Dale for getting the nutella off our bikes and Kayla the cat for being the source of our entertainment for the weekend. Simmonds will miss you.