Harry Molloy Reports From The Pearce DH series

Bucknell – final round of the infamous Pearce DH series

I was travelling up with good friends Brad and Jack. Brad lives in Horsham in West Sussex so on the way for me. We went out for a curry that night to start the weekend off and went for a quick tear around in his Evo. Brad competes in some sprint races and his car goes 0-60 in under 3.5 seconds; a bit different to my fiesta but not too dissimilar. From something manly to something not; Brad’s cat had just had a litter of kittens, they are awesome fun!

(I arrived at Bucknell after travelling at 4:30am for 4 hours... tired but very hyped! I had to build a wheel on the way for Stan, another mate from the same town as myself. It lasted the weekend so my building in the dark must have been ok still! I had never been to Bucknell and this is something of a rarity for me. I didn’t really know what to expect at all. I was excited to see jumps from the word go though and it looked to be quite fast paced most of the way down! I am easily pleased by any track but this one was looking to be my cup of tea.

I couldn’t get enough of practise! I probably did about 10 runs. It was an easy track to learn and an easy track to go fast on from the beginning. It was dry and the dust was about 6inchs deep in a few places. Here is a run with Phil in front of me.

Phil Atwill and Harry Molloy at Bucknell bottom half from Harry Molloy on Vimeo.

Phil Atwill and Harry Molloy at Bucknell from Harry Molloy on Vimeo.

I stayed with Stan, Connor and Mark on Saturday night with jack and brad too. We were in a pretty nice little lodge just down the road from the track. I spent most of the night in the hot tub! I woke up numerous times in the night though to hear the rain absolutely hammering down. I got up early to watch the first half of England winning another round of the world cup rugby and we got on our way back to race.

It had rained so hard I didn’t think it was going to be the same track at all. I walked up the bottom section to the woods to see what the track was like and somehow it was still dusty beneath the trees? The weather didn’t know what its plans were for the day. It rained a bit during practise and half way through racing it lashed down yet again.

The course didn’t stand a chance of staying dusty this time but it was still 50/50 whether to stay with high rollers or spikes. I walked up to the uplift with Marc Beaumont who didn’t seem to know either... having a cut down on the back and a high roller on the front. When we all were ready to set off at the start it was only spitting lightly. I knew it would be fine to see out of my goggles with a couple of tear offs incase. My run went together pretty well. I went better in sections than others and only had a couple of little moments. When I have two race runs I just like to get a good time in and leave it to the second run to push it.

I came down in 2nd behind Marc Beaumont. I was pretty pleased with how it was going. I was 2.9 seconds back with a 2min and 7 seconds. I looked at the split and saw that I had lost all of that in the first half of the track and was the same at the bottom. Quite annoyed as I thought I was going good at the top, but happy to see I was on pace at the bottom.

The rain was on and off all day and my favourite part of a race was finally here...final runs. I wanted to go all out now. I went a second faster at the first split. I made a ton of mistakes and didn’t really think I was going faster at all but I stuck at it. A messy run got beyond messy and the corner before the finish line I ended up on my side sliding along on the grass. Not a moment I want to stick with me but I think with everyone seeing it I’m sure I will be reminded about it.

I was still 2nd place and was pretty happy with it; coming second to Marc Beaumont is never going to be a bad thing.
I was pretty surprised as I had missed a round and was concussed for another round of the series but I was 4th overall too.

It was straight back home to get up for work Monday morning but just had time to ride my Ariel for a quick XC loop.
It’s Mr Blings PORC race this weekend and hopefully a few of us Madison/Saracen riders will be there! It’s all about the fantastic atmosphere with Mr Bling’s races and it’s always a great race. However into DH you are, you should be there!