Last weekend we attended Britains biggest mountain bike festival – The Malverns Classic. Scott has been attending this event since he began his mountain bike career in 1996! He has had some incredible results here over the years and it’s always exciting to be racing in front of fans who don’t necessarily attend many other races during the year!
The team arrived on Thursday to set up their team area ahead of the crowds arriving later that day. The Surf and Turf team tents looked amazing as always! Scott had a look at the dual slalom track ahead of the event on Friday.
Friday morning arrived and it was a full day of dual slalom. Practice in the morning, qualifying after lunch and then the racing later in the day.
This track is a proper old school slalom track. Poles on a grass field. Really simple. The track flowed really well and the riders were having plenty of fun.
Qualifying and it was the classic, one lap, no crap. Qualifying was done on the red lane and there was no room for mistakes. The top 32 would qualify to the racing and with only a couple of seconds separating the top 32, errors would be punished!
Scott put together a great lap. Cautious where he needed to be and fast in the flowing corners. It was good enough for 2nd position. Scott and the team were really happy with that and we headed back to the team tent to prep the race bikes.
Onto the racing. Scott was able to win his opening couple of rounds and was looking confident and in the mood for racing! In the quarter finals, things got interesting. The former Downhill World Cup Champion Josh Bryceland was the opponent.
Scott made a great start and was pushing very hard. He was in the lead when Josh pushed too hard and crashed out. In dual slalom this means a maximum time penalty of 2 seconds is applied for the second run. In the second run, Scott again pushed where he could and held the lead all the way down. It was a great win and he moved on to the semi finals.
In the semi finals it was slopestyle superstar Sam Reynolds as the opponent. Sam was 3rd fastest in qualifying so it was going to be a tough fight.
Scott used the same tactics again. He made a great start and took the lead. In the final turn Sam was trying to catch up and pushed too hard – crashing out. So again, Scott had a 2 second advantage into the second run. In the second run he again held the lead and controlled the race to take the win.
Final time!
In the final, Scott was up against the fastest qualifier Will Soffe – MBUK bike tester. Although Will isn’t a pro rider, he rides bikes every day and is easily as fast as most pro riders in the UK. In run 1 Scott was on the slower blue lane. He made a great start and put together an awesome lap – the fastest on the blue lane all day. Although he took 2nd in the run, it was only 0.135 behind. Knowing he had the faster red lane for the final run, he was extremely confident.
In the second run he absolutely laid down his best lap of the day. Stormed to the win by over a second and became the 2022 Malverns Classic Dual Slalom Champion.
In the finish area Scott said:
“That was a tough day! I’ve had so much fun racing today. Simple track and literally full concentration to keep the wheels in line. I felt fast all day and I’m really happy to take the win. I’ve had some tough rounds of racing to make it to the final – racing World Cup DH Champions, Slopestyle Champions and everyone in between!
I’m buzzing. Now it’s off to Val DI Sole for 4X ProTour finals.”
As Scott mentioned, we had to leave the Malverns Festival on Friday night as we headed straight to Italy for the final 2 rounds of 4X ProTour – the World Series of 4X. Scott is currently sat in 2nd and he is looking to secure 2nd overall in the World for 2022.
Lets see what happens.
Round 6 is on Friday night. Round 7 is on Saturday night.
Update on Monday next week or follow Scott’s social media for updates – @beaumontracing on all platforms.
Thank you to all our team partners for your support in 2022.