The end of the season is in sight, and in a way I am quite glad. It's been a long year of racing, and I felt completely wiped out after the race at Pembrey. Training also gets more and more difficult to fit in as the days get shorter. Just two rounds to go, both of which are quite close to Cardiff, meaning a little more time in bed on Sunday morning.
Gilwern is another new venue to me, as it only held a race for the first time last season. Practice revealed it be quite interesting - narrow, bumpy, twisty and greasy at the start of the lap, quite a long woodland descent to an open field section with literally a spiral of tape to negotiate, then a blast across the field and up a gravel climb to finish the lap. In complete contrast to Pembrey last week, it was only really the final third of the lap where it was possible to go full gas for more than a few seconds.
The race started half way round the lap, so that the climb could spread the field out. I got off the line well, but got squeezed hard at the first bottleneck and lost out pretty badly. It was a pretty hectic first lap, with plenty of leaning on people and being leaned on into corners! The race then soon settled down for me, into a familiar pattern of damage limitation on the slippery technical first half of the lap, and trying to claw back time on the open sections and up the climb. These are the sort of conditions where everyone is going to make mistakes and I had my fair share of two wheel slides, some of which ended up sending me pretty wide and into the bushes or through the tape. I managed to stay upright for the whole race though.
It was a bit of a frustrating race; I was going as quick as I could through the slippery corners, and the front end broke away from me from time to time to confirm that I was right on the limit of grip/my technical ability. Nonetheless, plenty of people around me were making it look a lot easier (and faster), and so I was losing time and seemingly powerless to do anything about it. The slippery sections also deteriorated as the race went on; I seemed to try a different line through some sections every lap, none of which seemed any better than each other. So, that's yet another weakness identified and something to try and work on for next year. In spite of this, a relatively thin field meant I came home in 24th place, securing an unspectacular but respectable haul of points towards the overall league standings.
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