Race Report: British 4X Series Round 3 & 4 - Redhill

From the rough and rocky rounds 1 & 2 at Afan the 2022 British 4X Series heads to what could be argued as one of the smoothest tracks of the year, Redhill. Sat on the tip of The River Severn, Matty, The manager there has transformed what was a grass hill in a beautiful part of the world into a fun playground for mountain bikers.


Aptly named due to the red clay-like dirt the track is formed from. Unlike years gone by, however, the grass has been left to grow and then cut back so rather than racing on clay, it's grass track racing. The advantage being a hell of a lot more grip in the corners for some inside moves. The drawback is an exorbitant amount of rolling resistance.

Round 3

Practice


A strange quirk but if you look closely at most shots from a Schwalbe British 4X you'll notice 2 stickers on riders' race plates. This is down to British Cycling which state all riders must have 2 practice laps under their belt before they are allowed to race. Whilst few walk away with trophies to add to their collections, everyone walks away with a race plate and as such most racers collect them. Rather than mark the plate, Chief commissaire Alastair buys sticker pads and places a sticker on the plate after each of the rider's first 2 runs. A very small detail, but one which shows thought and consideration.


It didn't take Dan Wagstaff long to get up to speed in his impressively white DHARCO kit styling it up on the stepdown out of turn 2. Perhaps that's down to the fact he lives about 10 minutes away...


Series leader in elites Josie McFall stays proactive in her downtime off the bike picking up a camera and vlogging some action.


Pictured alone is juvenile rider Gabe Simpson. This was taken about 25 meters from the start gate which had 3 other riders in during gate practice. Gabe clearly has some impressive pace managing to get a few bike lengths on his competition within such a short distance. I've just had a look on roots and rain and things are made a good bit clearer, Gabe is a BMX racer and only races 4X every now and again, that'll explain the speed out the gate then.


Did I mention it was hot, very hot in fact? By mid-day it was 24° thus a lot of riders were taking it easy in the amount of riding they were doing.

Racing




A lovely bit of battling it out in the last male elite moto. Charlie Currie was leading up until the wall but with Zac Hudson managing to get a hell of a drive on the back side they were side by side over the rollers with Zac managing to just get the moto win having due to having the inside line into the final left.


Onto the male elite B final where local Waggers managed to hold off both Ian Forsythe and Tom bell to take the last spot on the podium. Tom Bell, pictured in 3rd was absolutely hauling. As you can see, he's a full bike length behind Ian on the last step up before the finish line. Ian's front wheel crosses the line ahead of Tom's but with the speed Tom was carrying his back wheel crossed the line before Forsythes had.


It seems like the racing Josie McFall has been doing with World Champ Michala out in Winterberg for the 4X ProTour has given her the skills and confidence to become almost untouchable. An absolutely dominant performance all day winning every moto and the final ahead of Sophie Cade and Izzy Wagstaff.


Those of you following the National scene will know Scott Beaumont missed round 2 at Afan following a decent stack in round 1 on the Saturday. Safe to say he was in fighting fit form leading and winning every moto and the final taking the #1 spot on the podium.







Round 4


The bash brothers that are Dave and Scott Roberts are the first to pull the pin and tackle the push up. Hats off to everyone racing, Saturday may well have been hot at 24° but Sunday upped the game to 27°. Pushing up a bloody big hill run after run with the heat on your back can't have been easy so a doff of the cap to all of those who competed.


A bit of a random one here. During practice some kid somehow managed to not only lose his seat, which is a very good effort in itself, he then continued riding 2 more turns and a few step-downs and doubles later before he was stopped. Totally oblivious he'd lost it in turn one. To paraphrase Jay Z, maybe he'll become the head of black music.



Redhill was all about the kids with close to 40 under 16-year-olds racing on the Sunday despite clashing with another event. With being so young they clearly have a different perception on life and risk as was evident in the racing. Bar to bar, high lows, insiding, block passes, etc, absolute quality racing made for an entertaining afternoon for spectators.


For me, the standout racing was the masters' category. Consisting of Keeny, Davro, Hillyard, Sibley, Jnr, et al, it looked like a blast due to how evenly matched everyone seemed to be.


There was no clear favourite with each set of motos having a different winner. The power these boys have got would certainly give the young whipper-snappers a run for their money on a Watt Bike. In the end though it was Scott Roberts who secured the victory ahead of Dave Richardson, Dave Sibley and Matt Hillyard.




Onto the elite women and when these 2 weren't keeping the kids occupied whilst an unconscious rider was being stretchered off the track and holding the gate so that a ladybird wouldn't get crushed they were battling it out all afternoon.



Finally the elite men it was a barnstormer. I think the mentality was perhaps use Saturday as a test then turn it up to 11 for Sunday. We seen Waggers have the rides of his life trying insiders everywhere and mainly pulling them off. Tom Bell travelling at mach 10 slingshotting riders on the long straights light they were barely moving and Beaumont had to battle to get through the motos after coming a surprise second in moto 2.




The main event went off with a bang. Tom Bell had first pick due to winning all of his moto's and chose gate 3. Scott Beaumont had 2nd pick and chose gate 1. Zac Hudson chose 2 and finally, Dave Roberts was left with gate 4. As you can see, all 4 get a great gate and are level necking until the first roller where Tom and Scott start to creep a lead. As soon as Scott has that lead over Zac he swerves across to close in on Tom. A bizarre move and certainly one others won't have been expecting. The norm would have been to cover the inside. This forces Tom and Dave wide and super deep making the planned high lows almost impossible. Dave manages to capitalise and insides both Tom making the move from last to third. Whilst Scott leads it out comfortable with Zac in second Dave and Tom take the close battle all the way to the line with Dave taking 3rd.