Bikestyle 2009 Downhill Series - Round 3 - Senior National

Tholt-Y-Will 14/06/2009

After 2 years of heartache,Tom Skillicorn finally won the Manx National Downhill title on sunday at Tholt y Will plantation. Crashes in 2007 & 2008 robbed him of his chance to be crowned the Manx National Champion,but all that was forgotten with a clinical display of downhill riding at its very best.

With a good gathering of spectators & even more migies,they were not dissapointed with a really good turn out of riders putting on a fantastic show of bike handling skills for the crowds.

With no junior riders racing due to the severity of the track,the organisers put in a lot of effort to ensure that the 'infamous' track at Tholty was even more technical & savage than usual,with the addition of several new jumps,step downs,endless off camber rooted single track sections,coupled with the dry weather,ensured that it was going to be unbelievably fast from top to bottom.

The first race runs began & it was obvious from the start the times would be fast with Chris Sharpe setting an early pace with a great time of 1.42secs. Andrew Winstanley & Lee Corlett both went close to his time,but then all their times were then blown away by the run of Tom Skillicorn,who set a blistering time of 1.30secs to take the lead by a big margain. Sean Kelly,Richy Drinkwater,Ste Caley, Ben Hardy & new comer James Marshall all had great runs & posted times under 2 minutes. Co-organiser Russell Sansom was next away & put in a stunning descent with a time of 1.37secs to take second place after run 1.

Run 2 would see the riders going in reverse order & Bob Olerenshaw was 1st away & improved slightly with a time of 2.14secs. Next was Mike Kelly who had a big crash at one of the step down corners,but thankfully never made it to the safety nets!! Sam Gordon had a great run with 2.03secs just behind steady runs from Chris Thomas & Tom Craine. Ben Hardy just missed out the top 10 & took 11th with a great run of 1.58. Into the top 10 & Lee Marshal had 1 of the rides of the day knocking over 20secs of his 1st run to take 7th place, with Winstanley in 5th & Sharpe took 4th. Fellow organiser Gareth Fargher put a dissapointing first run behind him with a stunning 2nd run of 1.37.98secs to take 3rd place by only 0.149secs behind Sansom,who's 2nd run of 1.38 was quick but not quick enough to catch Skillicorn who improved again with a stupendous time of 1.29secs to take the win & finally take the title!

The club would like to thank Manx 1st Aid,Manx Timing Solutions,Brian Perrin for the 2way radios,Steve Ormerod for commissairing,Horizon Scaffolding for the safety nets & all the marshals & spectators for making it such a great day.

Russ Sansom