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The weekend of the 11th and 12th of December saw the 5th and penultimate round of the National Trophy Cyclocross take place at the Cyclopark cycling centre in Crawley, Kent. With a final chance in 2021 to consolidate his high placing overall before the short Christmas break our star racer Rory McGuire came into Round 5 confident following his recent win at Round 4 in Sunderland.
Rory’s typical fast start saw him racing ahead of overall Trophy series leader Corran Carrick-Anderson.
This was actually a ‘double-header’ weekend with Rory racing on the Saturday at the Clanfield Cross race which carried valuable UCI points; this race, with a field packed-full of racing talent provided Rory with the perfect final tune-up before the National Trophy on Sunday. Fellow Scot Cameron Mason took the win with Rory finishing strongly in 2nd place on a course that was tightly packed with lots of slippery corners which suited him well. Rory raced clean and smart finishing ahead of his nearest rival for the overall National Trophy series Corran Carrick-Anderson which was a bit of a morale boost going into the big race on Sunday.
Despite a few mid-race mishaps Rory stayed focused on staying high up in the top ten.
Jumping to the National Trophy on the Sunday and the technical Crawley course did not disappoint, giving the racers a chance to show their fantastic bike-handling skills as well as their amazing fitness. The main event soon came around with the Elite race fielding two of our Wheelbase Cabtech Castelli team riders – Rory who was riding in the green U23 category overall leader’s jersey and Adam Bent who has shown a rapid rate of progress in his first year of racing with the seniors.
Adam took a brilliant top 10 placing, finishing 8th.
Rory McGuire treated us to his usual fast start, getting away from the main bunch and placing ahead of overall series leader Corran Carrick-Anderson; unfortunately things did not go smoothly for too long with an untimely puncture impacting Rory’s place at the front of the race. Showing a cool head and a steely focus he fought his way back through the pack until another mishap and a damaged shoe also influenced his position in the race. As we’ve seen before this season Rory has the maturity to stay calm and redouble his efforts mid-race and a final push in the latter half of the race saw him eventually finish in a brilliant 7th place, helping him to remain in 2nd position overall going into the final round in the New Year.
Elsewhere in the main Elite race our first year senior racer Adam Bent raced intelligently; making the technical race conditions look easy Adam surfed the mud with his foot out when he needed to onboard the all-new Cannondale SuperSix EVO CX cyclocross bike which launched recently, finishing in a fantastic 8th place just behind Rory and giving Wheelbase and team sponsors Cannondale some great representation at the sharp end of the race.
Adam was racing onboard the all-new Cannondale SuperSix EVO CX.
Elsewhere, over the two days of National-level cross racing the Wheelbase Cabtech Castelli team had representation in other fast and frenetic races. Dave Haygarth our Vet 50 racer took a brilliant top ten placing finishing in 9th while our U14 Girls category racer Elsie Haygarth continued her good run of form placing 18th in her race. Unfortunately our very own Masters World Champion Lewis Craven was struggling with a small injury and couldn’t race, so we’ll have to wait a little longer to see him racing in his new World Champion’s jersey.
Rory McGuire now heads back to Belgium for some more racing over the festive period; with the highest level of competition over on the continent Rory’s experiences of racing over there will stand him in good stead for his return to the UK and the final National Trophy race at Broughton Hall, Yorkshire on the 16th of January.
Written by Johnny Dodgin
All photos by Man Down Media
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