Well, that was an awesome race weekend for MS EVIL RACING. Sunny weather, first podium, 3 riders in the top 20 and a 2nd place in the team ranking- what more could we want?
Back to square one: after a view world cups in rainy conditions we arrived in Commezzadura and the weather forecast said rainy conditions for Tuesday but promised good weather for the weekend. The course was a little different than it was in 2008 for the world championships, but Steve, Luke, Filip, Brook and Lewis were looking forward to race on that track.
Because of the fact the world cup of Val di Sole was a triple event with four-cross and cross country the downhill qualification happens on Fridays, which meant limited training till the qualifications. Nevertheless all MS EVIL riders did well and were able to qualify for the race. Especially noteworthy is the 28th place of our junior Lewis, who was struggling with mechanicals and crashes at most of the world cups before. The fact that all riders are in the finals made us looking forward to race days as all of them were in promising positions for the race and the conditions for the race seemed to be good.
On Sunday Filip was the first rider for MS EVIL RACING to go and unfortunately he start with a mechanical. In the end he became 75 and was more than disappointed, as he felt good after he missed the world cup of Champery because of a strained neck. Brook was the next rider to come and he got into the race with a lot of self-confidence after his 6th place of Champery. He had a good run, but couldn’t beat the fabulous time of the almost unknown Austrian Markus Pekoll. In the end Brook became 13th, which is another result, which helps him to establish himself in the top 20 world cup elite. Next rider to come was Luke. He tried to make it in the finish as he had some bad crashes in the races before. He got 26th and gains some self-confidence for the upcoming and really important races in overseas. Lewis crossed the finish line in 3rd position, which was awesome as Brook was still 2nd at that moment. Steve was the last MS EVIL rider to come and after an awesome run he jumped into the hot seat till Marc Beaumont came down. In the end Steve became 5th, which is his best world cup result in his career and his first podium in a UCI mountain bike world cup.
Steve in 5th, Brook in 13th, Lewis in 16th, Luke in 26th and Filip in 75th position add up to a 2nd place in the team results for Val di Sole.
MS EVIL RACING team manager Lukas Haider „this weekend was a pleasure! Being on site watching Steve on his first world cup podium, 16 year old Lewis ending up 16th in the middle of the top elite of the UCI world cup and Brook with another top result is just amazing and pays off for all the work which happens in the background thru mechanics, sponsors and the management. We want to thank all our sponsors but especially Schwalbe tires and Michael Kull for their support.”
