Gorrick Spring Series – Round 2 Tunnel Hill

Photo courtesey of Joolz Dymond

After the disappointment of round 1 being postponed till later in the year, due to bad weather, the Gorrick Spring Series finally got underway at long last at the ever, popular Tunnel Hill venue. 

Riders were once again in for a real treat as a perfectly crafted 5 mile circuit complete with super fast flowing technical singletrack, plus plenty of swoops and descents, balanced with a couple of steep killer climbs lay in wait.  Another perfect day out for well over 550 riders was in store that not even a quick smattering of snow could deter!

With the XC national season edging ever closer the Super Veterans were all keen to show off their winter miles and the racing was a real close fought out affair with just a hare's breath separating the top three over the 4 lap outing. 

Steve Jones made one of his usual customary fast starts and initially led the field before arch rivals from the masters catagory, Mark Hutt and Paul Hopkins, now both in their first vets race, along with vets regular Mark Chadbourne, surged to the front. 

These three quickly built a gap and by the end of lap 1 were nearly 2 minutes up on the second group, which contained Steve Jones and Mark Cracknell.  This lead was to extend to just over 5 ½ minutes by the end of the race. 

Going into the last lap Hopkins was starting to fade, yo-yoing back and forth off the back of the group.  However, Hoppy obviously wasn’t quite as tired as Hutt and Chadbourne thought, because as these two played cat and mouse going into the finish Hoppy jumped the pair of them to take the win a couple of seconds from Hutt with Chadbourne a further 10 seconds behind in third. 

Mean while, Jones and Cracknell continued their epic battle in the second group with Cracknell taking 6th place and although Jones tired slightly and lost a bit of time on lap 3 he scorched round on his final lap to put in the fastest lap of the day and 10th place.