For once in September we had gorgeous sunshine and dry conditions for an Aston Hill DH3 Race, even the famous Aston Hill race day fog didn't make an appearance...

Seeing it was both a farewell fling race to the Warby family and the end of the Aston Hill 2006 Season a massive amount of regular faces turned out for what I reckon was easily one of the best DH races at Aston Hill in a long while, if not ever...

Sadly I wasn't racing, but I helped out with the timing for the day - not the easiest of tasks with well over 300 riders entered! A big shout out has to go to the number of people who did 4 runs over the hard tail and their respective age categories...madness!

New times were being set every run with some blistering times well under the 1min40 mark and later on in the day less than 1min30, the times were blisteringly quick and unbelievable - Dh3 has always been called a 2minute track... I guess it needs to change its name from today!

Practice got under way promptly at 8.30am with several crashes and offs straight away, thankfully I don't think anyone was seriously hurt as I didn't hear any major horror stories. I believe the worst injury during practice was some pulled tendons, get well soon to anyone with bruises!

Racing started at the planned time even though practice had come to a halt several times due to crashes. A nasty off during the first runs brought the racing to a halt for a fair while whilst the St Johns paramedics went down to help the injured soul, were not sure who and what the injuries were, but get well soon to whom it concerns!

Sadly mid morning shortly after the pause from the crash the timing computer decided to go on the brink - this sadly put stop to the racing for half an hour or so until a new box of tricks and some wiring were put in place we were soon underway again. The times just continued to get quicker...

As the times got quicker and quicker and the ques got longer and longer it was really good to see such an impressive audience turn out to spectate the riders.

The atmosphere all day was really good as always with Aston Hill events, huge numbers of spectators turned out to watch friends and family race full pelt down the riders favourite track, DH3.

DMR and Balfa/Mountain Mania had stands up along with team pit tents from the likes of Buckingham Bikes and AstonHillDevo which as always made the car park a hive of activity and excitement...

Seeing it was the last race there was also a fair bit of fancy dress going on - one man braving the heat to race hardtail in a full gorilla suit, another racing in a boxers and thong combo, and our team rider Colin sporting a Sombrero!

A big well done has to go out to our team riders who took part too, here are the following results for our race team:
 

All in all the race was a huge success, but as always definitely not from a lack of hard work!!! We would like to give a big shout out to Ian and family, all others behind the running on the hill including the marshal's, the caterers, Kelvin the BC commasire, Mike and Amir from Mikrotime the St. Johns ambulance crew (who worked hard all day long removing bodies from the track) and of course apologies to anyone else  I've forgotten...!

Race results to be added up this week along with more photos including podium shots.... for now though please do check out some of our photos in the Photo Gallery

Results :: http://www.mikrotime.com/mtb/ast2006/ast0602.html