Wednesdays action, sponsored by North Eastpea Farm off-road centre and off road moto, looked on paper like it should be an easier travelling day after the 95 mile route of Tuesday, being over 20 miles shorter, but this didn't prove to be the case as we shall see!
The half way point of the 2014 SSDT has been reached and the scores are starting to climb, no rider remains clean overall and no rider completed the day without penalty. Dougie Lampkin finally joined the points scorers with a hard fought 3 at the first section at Grey Mares Ridge, the eleventh section of the day, and he went on to add another 3 in the Glen Stockdale group to finish with 6. Sam Haslam (GasGas) at one point threatened to take over the lead but also finished the day with 6 marks to add to his existing 3. Even so this moved the Berkhampsted rider into a clear second place.
Kinlochleven resident Gary MacDonald (Sherco) demonstrated his local knowledge by cleaning everything the day could throw at him right up to the second section at the newly introduced Glen Stockdale, a section that took at least 3 marks off the entire entry apart from Robert Waite with his single dab ride. Gary unfortunately then went on to lose more marks at the final group, Lagnaha, but managed to pull up one place on the leader board from his over night position.
The river crossing between Glen Stockdale and Glenmuckrach proved a problem for some. On the way across there was enough height and a good landing to jump across but for the return journey a trip through the water was required. By this time the recent heavy rain had swollen the water level to above knee height, just the wrong height for most modern machines air intake. Riders resorted to carrying their machines across, and multiple World Champion Dougie Lampkin was on hand to assist a few riders with their bikes and gladly accepted a lift with his own.
Apart from Dougie and Sam's daily total of 6 James fry returned a fine score of just 8 to climb several places overall and Dan Thorpe completed the foursome that kept to single figures on the day with 9. The top five now reads Dougie on 6, Sam haslam 9 and then three riders, Sam Connor, James Dabill and Michael Brown on 14
Once again Emma Bristow (Sherco) did enough to pull a few more marks ahead of Becky Cook (Beta) in the Ladies class, with Sara Trentini (Ossa) in third still circulating well accompanied by partner Michelle Bosi (Ossa).
The over 40 class is still headed by Jordi Pascuet (Jotagas) after his very respectable 12 mark loss of the day but jumping into the runner up berth, above John Shirt jnr (GasGas) is West Country man Adam Norris on his Beta.
The newcomers award is still being closely fought over by the two 125's of James Stones (Sherco) and Iwan Roberts (Beta), with Iwan pulling a couple of points back today and is now just 3 behind, 41 to 44.
Thursday's 84 mile route starts at Bradleigh with the first riders arriving at around 8.30, the weather once again looks to be a mix of broken clouds and showers, Fersit will be the place that the crowd will head too.