Nigel Page reports from Bike Radar Live

Last weekend we attended the Donnington Park for the Bike Radar event. An event similar to the bike show but outdoors, kind of like the UK version of the Sea Otter Classic. We went for the Slalom event which they held on Saturday - practice and qualifying in the daytime and then the head to head racing for the top 32 qualifiers under floodlight in the evening. The track was designed and built by Will Longden and Dave Wardell and it just shows that top level racers have the knowledge and experience to build great race tracks - both lanes were very even in times, almost identical and it made the racing was very close and exciting. Lewis Lacey was our only rider on a hardtail - which we all could have done with as the track was pretty flat with BMX style jumps. The full suspension bikes that the rest of the guys had (Intense Tazer VPP's) were not the ideal but they did pretty well considering. Chris Kovarik qualified 3rd fastest on his full-suss next to the other top guys all riding hardtails like 4X specialists Roman Salidini, Scott Beaumont and the legendary Brian Lopes making a one race return for the event. The racing ended up starting pretty late and it got cold but there was still a huge crowd and a great atmosphere for the racers. All the team riders racing Chris, Ruaridh, Matt and Lucas all made it through the first round but only Chris and Matt making it through to the 1/4 finals. Chris actually knocking out Ruaridh and Lucas narrowly getting beat by Mark Beaumont, whose world cup DH skills showed in the corners. Matt was then knocked out of the competition by eventual winner Gee Atherton and Chris was narrowly beaten by 2nd placed Brian Lopes. It was great final between Gee and Lopes with Gee just taking the win and showing what a great all round racer he is. Everyone enjoyed the racing and all rode great. This was the first time Chris, Matt and Ruaridh have raced an event outside of DH for a while and I really hope there is more events like this in the near future. Final Results: 1 Gee Atherton 0:00:28.965 2 Brian Lopes 0:00:29.772 3 Romain Salidini 0:00:29.540 4 Scott Beaumont 0:00:29.074 5 Chris Kovarik 0:00:29.319 6 Greg Minnaar 0:00:29.326 7 Matt Simmonds 0:00:30.329 8 Marc Beaumont 0:00:30.417 9 Lewis Lacey 0:00:29.839 10 Josh Bryceland 0:00:30.371 11 Rich Batey 0:00:30.486 12 Tom Dowie 0:00:30.565 13 Jordan Gould 0:00:30.747 14 Ruaridh Cunningham 0:00:30.759 15 Pat Campbell-Jenner 0:00:30.837 Images are courtesy of BikeRadar.com Nigel Page Team Manager - ChainReactionCycles/Intense www.CRCintense.com