Last years Southwest Champs was my first ever race.
When I first ever went to Gawton it was to ride downhill for the first time on 'HSD' track.
After riding for a year I decided to race on the new track 'Proper Job' which was quite a step up and this year they upped the game even more holding the race on 'SuperTavi'.
SuperTavi is the old dirt 1:04 track and the track that had said to me when I started downhill "If I can ever ride that, then I will be a downhill rider" in my mind it was unobtainable... at the time!In no way was I expecting it to be easy, I was nervous! I first rolled down it and with the new sections built in they had made the track harder. There was one section I just could not get around at first but got more confident with practice. I had a couple of really hard crashes but nothing could stop me with that feeling that every clean run was taming the beast. I was loving the challenge!
When it came to race day I was tired and now know that 3 days practice before was too much but every race I learn something new.
The pressure was off in someways because so many people had entered but didn't race because the track was so hard. By Sunday there weren't many girls left.
I had one clean super safe run and one terrible pushing it run. I came off twice my second run. I wish I had pushed it more on my first run but without more competition it was hard to risk such big crashes on so many nervous sleeps before!
Still I tamed the beast and raced SuperTavi and that is an achievement I never thought I would have, that and a Silver Southwest champs medal!
