Sunday the 16th of October saw the first event of it's kind held in Ireland . The venue was Moneyscalp, Newcastle . Organised by Grace O'Neill from Mencap, the objective was to provide a fun day out for like minded soul's, and to raise some money for charity. Up lift's were provided, and ran steadily all day.

The track was a combination of the two top sections, which merged just above the ski jump, down and over the carpet jump, where a northshore type ladder had been built so that rider's of any level of ability would be able to hit it.

Then it was down to the main spectator attraction, the water jump, and on to the finish of the DH track. Everyone seemed relaxed, and were having fun trying to out-do each other over the waterjump.

There has been some modification's done to the track in the top section's. The flat corner's had been sorted out with sweet berm's, and the landing to the waterjump had been built up to provide a lip, meaning you had to clear the gap, come up short, and tragedy would strike. Ian McIntyre can tell you how this feels, he was in Moneyscalp a week before, came up short on the landing, cased it big time and got bucked off his bike.

Thankfully, today he made the gap everytime. The last berm on the track had also been built up, but it still wasn’t big enough to catch a lot of the rider's. A few crashes were had here, thankfully, no one got hurt.

The bbq was fired up around mid day, and riders took the opportunity to get some hot food down their necks, before heading back up the hill for more fun. Alan Clogher put in a lot of run's, and every time I saw him he was on a different bike ! The Smith brothers were looking really fast, this wasn’t a race, but it didn’t stop them pushing hard. Most of the spectators were gathered round the water jump, where Stevo, Ewan Doherty, Jamie Scott and Marty McGuigan were throwing down some big MX style whips. Jamie McCullough was pulling no footer's, and Ricky Lawrence and Honcho were pulling off perfect suicides. Colin Franklin was not to be out done, he was pulling huge one handed, no footer's, lunatic!

At 4.30 the announcement was made that the prize draw was about to take place. Everyone who had gathered more than fifty pound's sponsorship had their names put into the hat for the draw. Prize's consisted of a Kona frame, donated by Stephen Beattie, nice one mate, various bit's of body armour, a couple of case's of beer, and voucher's for First Tracks and ATB training sessions.

Overall, a very successful day. Great craic, good food, and free beer, (for the over 18s only).

A big thank you goes out to Grace O'Neill for organising the event, and to RedBull for sponsoring it. Last, but not least, thanks to Shaggy, for all the hard work he has put in to improving the track. We look forward to more events like this next year.