This weekend, I headed to one of the biggest race events of the year, the Weston Beach Race. The race is a 90-minute battle across Weston beach, with a track roughly four miles long. The course includes a mile-long straight, huge built-up sand dunes and jumps with tunnels running through them for spectators to walk through while the racing takes place. It’s an incredible event, but also one of the toughest challenges of the year.
My race was at 9am on Sunday morning, but preparations started on Friday. I had to get my bike scrutineered and leave it inside the gated area, where it would stay until the gates opened on Sunday morning. As I had a standard fuel tank, I had to make sure my bike was completely race-ready and filled to the top with fuel before leaving it.
On Sunday morning, I made my way down to the beach for 7:30am to get my kit on, take everything I needed into the pits and get ready for the race. At 8:30am, I headed up towards the gates, ready for the start. The gates only open once the race begins, allowing riders to run in, find their bikes and line up behind a quad bike which would lead you down to the beach start. As soon as the gates opened, I sprinted to find my bike, got it out of the holding area and rode it onto the road. I managed to get myself into around 20th place out of 115 riders, which was a great start. We followed the quad bike down the road, passing the spectators and stalls before heading down towards the beach and another set of closed gates. This was the start line. Once the gates opened, we had around a mile of beach straight ahead, running right alongside the sea. I got off to a good start, but as I went around the first corner, I hit the first small dune and crashed. My bike sank into the sand, making it incredibly heavy and difficult to pull out. I managed to pick it up and get going again. This cost me time and dropped me back to 43rd place. By the second lap, I had started to find a good pace, learning where the smoother sections of the track were. I began making up places and worked my way back up to 23rd.
By the third lap, the track had already changed. The ruts were getting deeper and moving around every lap, meaning I couldn’t simply follow the same lines I had used before. I had to keep looking ahead, adapt to the conditions and find new lines as the race went on. Around 30 minutes into the race, I made my first pit stop for fuel, a drink and a fresh pair of goggles. I headed back out in 14th place, with an hour of racing still to go. I kept my head down, maintained my pace and pushed on, despite falling off a couple more times. I continued to work my way through the field and eventually reached 10th place, ready for my next pit stop. I came into the pits for another fuel stop, changed my gloves, grabbed a drink and headed straight back out.
After the stop, I was back in 12th place, with just 30 minutes remaining. This was by far the hardest part of the race for me. I was starting to feel tired, my body was aching and the physical effort of riding through the sand for so long was catching up with me. With the track becoming more difficult every lap, I knew I had to dig deep and keep pushing. As other riders came into the pits, it was difficult to know exactly where I stood, but I kept my head down and gave it everything I had right until the finish.
Once the race was over, I rode back to the pits, where my mum and dad told me I had finished in 9th place out of 115 riders! Which was mega as my goal going into the race was to finish inside the top 10, and after crashing on the first lap and dropping back to 43rd, to fight my way back through the field and finish 9th felt amazing. It was a tough 90 minutes, both physically and mentally, but it was worth every bit of effort. I’ve been taking part in the Weston Beach Race ever since I first rode it on my 65cc bike, and it’s an event I love coming back to every year.
The atmosphere, the challenge and the experience of racing on the beach make it so special. I’m really happy with my result this year and proud of how I kept pushing when things got tough. Now I’m already looking forward to doing it all again next year!
