On Sunday the 4th June, DMR Dirtwars headed to Hampshire for the second round of the event, hosted by the rider favourite of Holdshott Trails. The #Shottcrew had been hard at work the last few weeks prepping the two courses ensuring that everything ran smoothly so that the riders could flow easily through the course and concentrate on throwing down their biggest tricks. A Special shout out to Ben Dobbin for re-plying the kickers and putting the most hours behind a shovel.
As I mentioned, Dirtwars runs on two lines at Holdshott, they start at the same place with a flat drop into a big left hand hip before dividing, before the Open/Amateurs branch left into ‘Comp Line’ consisting of two big, dirt to dirt doubles and finishing with a kicker onto mulch. The Pros head right into the ‘Slope Line’ hitting a speed/set up jump before launching off the boner log, up and down the whale tale structure before hitting the final kicker to mulch double.
With sun shining its light through the trees and the wind keeping to a minimum, the conditions were looking perfect for an entertaining day of competition and the riders were keen to get signed in, padded up and start figuring their way through the course.
We saw a couple of new names entering into this round of Dirtwars, most notable were the international presence of Bryce Starling, James Davidson and Ben Davidson who had travelled all the way from Canada and were keen to impress the judges and the steadily building crowd of spectators.
With a few of the regular faces to the DMR DirtWars competition scene still not quite recovered from injuries or unable to attend the event, the rider lists were looking a bit shorter than usual and the decision was made to run a round of 3 seeding runs, rather than 3 qualification runs and take all the riders into the finals.
Unfortunately, this message didn’t get through to Holdshott local, Tristan Bushnell, who went full guns blazing on his first run, only to massively over rotate a 360/ under rotate a 720 on the 3rd jump, limping away, he would sit out his next two runs and save it all for finals.
After all the riders had taken their runs, the judges tallied up their scores and the running order for the Open/ Amateur finals would look like this Tristan Bushnell, Peter Crocket, Josh Venamore, Zac Rainbow and Jack Cardy taking the top spot, with some big spins and huge extensions.
Onto the Pros, and with riders spinning in every direction and on every feature on the course, the crowd knew that they were in for an action-packed afternoon.
With Each run riders were squeezing in more and more combinations, not only making it difficult for the judges to keep tally, but also giving Dylan a few tongue twisters announcing on the mic.
Privateer rider and radical bikes local, Cameron Crozier showed why he made the jump up to Pros this year with a number of technical tricks littered throughout his run, with the standout being the double truck off the easy to overshoot boner log. Enough for 3rd place and his first pro podium.
Tom Isted is known for going big on a bike and Sunday was no different , sending a 450 over the hip and perfect super-flips as well as a technical truck up onto the whale tale and barrel rolling off. Not tricking off the flat drop may have been the only limitation and he would have to settle for second place.
Not wanting to be out done by his younger brother’s performance in the open category, Tom Cardy dropped into his runs with only the top step in mind. Putting down a solid first run allowed him some freedom to push the boundaries further in his second, sending a 3-whip off the boner and finishing with a controlled cork 720, more than enough to join his brother on the top step and make it a Cardy dominance of round 2.
- Tom Cardy: 360, Tailwhip, Barspin, 3-Whip, Tuck, 360 Can, 720
- Tom Isted: -, 450, Flip, Tuck, Barrel Roll, Superflip
- Cameron Crozier: 360, Tuck, Double Truck, Tuck, 360, Double Tailwhip
An honourable shout out goes to Harry Campbell, who had his sights on one thing, being the first person to ever front flip up on to the Whale tale, which is incredible technical as it is such a tight gap with a big step up. Unfortunately, he was unable to pull it off in his 3 runs, landing hard on the deck each time, but this dude is an animal and headed straight back up after each attempt. Cheered on by the crowd, he was able to land it on his 5th attempt and carry enough speed to finish the course.
So That’s it for round 2 of DMR Dirtwars and what a round it was. Thanks to all the riders for throwing it down, all the spectators that came to cheer on the riders and give their support, the #Shottcrew for once again providing a brilliant running course and the Mandry family for opening up their farm and providing this spectacular venue. (Please remember that Holdshott Trails are on private land and are not able to be ridden at any other time of year).
Lastly a massive shout out to Cliff and the Dirtwars crew for all their organisation and putting on the event and series.
For Round 3 the series heads down to NASS festival for the weekend (7th-9th July).
