There was a knock at my door at 6 am on the Sunday; it was Elliot with a car load of his mates outside a little earlier than I anticipated. With Simon taking four bikes in his van we were going to be travelling heavy, already inside was Elliot Beken (the comeback kid) riding dads KTM 450 EXC and Si Beken KTM 250 EXC, perched on the bike rack was my Honda MTX 125 which was on loan to first timer Jesh Palmer (maybe Jesh should have worn my lucky Wally Palmer race shirt?...nah) and on the trailer we spent a few hours servicing on Saturday…you know like making a mudguard from a Peugeot door skin, was my Yamaha WRF 250.

45 minutes later we were ready to leave minus a passenger, Gary McCarthy with his legendary sense of direction or lack of it, was going to meet with us on the A3 services, driving his immaculate MK1 Golf, including Crew Chief Malcom Beken who always meets us there made it nine altogether.

TBEC Owthorpe Notts 20th June

In my first ever season of racing and being a sprightly 45 years old, I will say to all those thinking about racing, go for it. I have found everyone to be helpful and very friendly this year with help and advice freely available. I would suggest going and helping set the course up the day before the race as this gives you an insight as to what you face and the riding advice from the 'old timers' is invaluable.

We arrived early on Sunday morning, It was overcast and feeling quite cold which would have been ideal for racing. I unloaded my bike and went to check which row I was starting on, row 0 was my starting row. Personally I like to get through scutineering and get my bike on the start line early so I don't have to worry about anything. With this done it's back to the van to eat and drink plenty and get kitted up. The horn sounds and it's time for the pre race briefing. The course is 5.5 miles with 3.5 miles of woodland and 2 miles of fast open fields.

At the start my bike started easily and I was off. Obviously not being able to help set up this time I didn't get a look at the course so was riding blind, so a steady first lap was in order. As I entered the woods it looked fairly open but this soon changed. The woods had a bit of everything and this was becoming apparent. It soon tightened up to single track interspersed with some deep mud. It also had some tricky ditches thrown in for good measure. Then out into the open fields, now these were fast. My bike was revving out in top and I had dropped 4 teeth off of the rear sprocket for this race!