ms-racing

Mtbfreeride.tv Impressions Of Champery

admin — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:07:28 +0000

Domenico and Alex from mtbfreeride.tv catch some impressions of the race weekend in Champery/ Switzerland.

Big thank you to the crew of mtbfreeride.tv for this insight into our life.

Uci Mountainbike Worldcup Of Champery

admin — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 20:36:39 +0000

When it comes to a World Cup, the weather always rains on our parade. When we arrived in Champery on Tuesday the weather was amazing with temperatures of 30° for setting up the pits, but as we got closer to the race day the weather got worse and worse. The race track was deterioratingextremely badly due to the wet weather. The mood in the pits was that no one was looking forward to racing such a difficult track like Champery in the wet. Loads of rain made the challenging track of Champery an almost unrideable monster. It was all about staying on the bike, which made riders runs look more of rodeo than anything else.

MS Evil Racing was on site with Steve, Luke, Brook and Lewis, but Filip unfortunately crashed hard on his head the weekend before Champery and was unable to make the trip to Champery on doctors advice.

In qualifying some riders stepped their game up in the wet like Wyn Masters and the MS Evil rider Brook MacDonald who qualified 11th. Unfortunately all other MS EVIL riders didn’t fare so well in qualifying crashing and ending up disappointed with their qualifying results. The team results were as follows: 32nd place for Luke, 51st place for Steve and 86th place for Lewis. Everyone was ready for race day to make amends for their mishaps in qualifying. Steve and Luke looked strong until the first split, but again the hill got the better if them, sending them to the ground and out of podium contention for the weekend.
So it was up to Brook to carry the torch for MS/Evil for the weekend. Brook came through with an extremely impressive run, he ended in 6th place just missing a podium appearance by a small margin. This was Brook’s best result in the World Cup series in his young career and one of the best results for MS EVIL RACING team in 2010.

MS EVIL RACING team manager Lukas Haider “It was amazing to see Brook prove his talent in these conditions and a pleasure to see him in the top 10 of the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup in Champery!”

1. Gee Atherton GBR/ Atherton Racing
2. Greg Minaar RSA/ Santa Cruz Syndicate
3. Brendan Fairclough GBR/ Monster Energy Specialized
4. Sam Blenkinsop NZL/ Lapierre international
5. Damien Spagnolo FRA/ Mondraker Factory Team
6. Brook MacDonald NZL/ MS EVIL RACING
40. Steve Smith CAN/ MS EVIL RACING
46. Luke Strobel USA/ MS EVIL RACING

Full results on uci.ch

Scotland Road Trip #2 On Mtbfreeride.tv

admin — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 11:57:19 +0000

Here we go with the 2nd issue of our brand new podcast produced by mtbfreeride.tv. Dom and Alex followed us on our tour thru Scottland and show the daily grind of a professional mountainbike race team.

Stay tuned for the next episodes…

Ixs Cup Leogang/ Austria

admin — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 10:12:56 +0000

Like two other big UCI mountain bike teams also MS EVIL RACING decided to stay one more week in Leogang to compete the growing and well organized IXS cup event series.

After a world cup weekend affected by loads of rain, we had good weather from Monday on and so it would have been a good time for just riding and testing. Nevertheless MS EVIL RACING decided to do some sightseeing and so we went to the world of Red Bull better known as Salzburg.
First off all we visited the international team manager of Steve and Luke in the head quarter of Red Bull in Fuschl. It’s a quiet cool building without any red Bull signs, but really cool architecture. While Steve and Filip got some stuff of the new Red Bull athletes collection the rest of the team had the chance to have closer look into what’s going on in the heart of Red Bull.

Right after that we had a date in Salzburg city for a sightseeing tour in the Hangar 7, which is a kind of museum for all the airplanes of the so-called Flying Bulls. We got it managed to get a special tour with the boss of the “flying bulls”, who led us through the holy halls of the Red Bull Hangar 8, where Red Bull keeps a crowed of mechanics and engineers busy with restoring old airplanes and keep them running. It’s really special to get into this service hangar and to have a look in the inside of the infamous DC-6. The boss of the flying bulls mentioned that every once in a while the boss of Red Bull Didi Mateschitz himself show up at the hangar to fly with one of the airplans… and by luck it has happen. It was a quiet special situation for Steve and Filip to see the man, who support them for so many years… not just with money, but also with whole power of Red Bull.

Next day it was the birthday of Luke, which get celebrated with a traditional Austrian Sacher Torte and for sure loads of beer.

On Friday we have been back on “race mode” and we all have been pretty focused on the competition. Even it was no world cup there have been a lot of really good rides such as Justin Leov or Nick Beer who leads in the overall of the IXS cup.

Saturday starts with the DH qualifications and finishes the 4X race where Filip became 3rd right.
After the qualification all riders have been qualified in really good positions except Brook who had a mechanical in his qualifying run. His early start in the race run bestows Brook a really long time in the hot seat, which means about 140 riders. Brook just got beaten by 4 other riders including his team-mate Steve Smith who become 2nd with 0.233 seconds off Justin Leov.

In the end we had 5 riders in the top 15 and Lewis is 2nd in the overall of the European IXS cup series.

1.Justin Leov, Trek
2.Steve Smith, MS EVIL RACING
3.Nick Beer, Scott 11
4.Marcus Klausmann, Ghost
5.Brook MacDonald, MS EVIL RACING
7.Luke Strobel, MS EVIL RACING
11. Lewis Buchanan, MS EVIL RACING
15. Filip Polc, MS EVIL RACING

Complete results.

Impressions Of Uci Worldcup In Leogang

admin — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 20:54:09 +0000

It’s easy to write that the UCI worldcup of Leogang Austria was a jawing match, but there are no words to describe how bad the conditions were.
Hoshi Yoshida followed MS EVIL RACING throughout the weekend and documented the conditions with his camera- check it out:

Thanks to Hoshi for those impressions.

Jawing Match Of Leogang- Uci Worldcup Round #3

admin — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 16:13:57 +0000

After 2 weeks off the world cup with some good results in “Balaton DH” and the “wheels of speed” we have been ready for the 3rd world cup round of Leogang/ Austria. The omen was good for some good results at these races, but our hopes curbed after a bad crash of Steve on Friday in the first training. A broken helmet and the sign of a concussion made it necessary for Steve to stay in the hospital for the night.

Even Steve was still handicapped by the crash he was willing to do the seeding and qualified 23rd. With 16th in place of Luke, Filip in 37th, Brook in 44 and Lewis in 71st position all riders were qualified for the race and so we had good chances to annul our bad result in the team ranking of the last world cup round in Fort William/ SCO.

Right after the downhill qualification Filip needed to race four cross, which was not an easy task as the track was challenging. The course builder Guido Tschugg built a cool track with many options and some sections which separate the wheat from the chaff. As usual a course like this is the right thing for Filip where he may show his skills. He was the man of the race as he showed different lines, incredible passing moves and racing from the best- 7th place.

For Sunday the downhill race day the boys were hungry and we have been ready to prove that we are better than we have been in Scotland. Lewis was first of the squat going down the hill and finished 59th. Brook landed on 27th, Filip on 22nd, Luke on 12th and Steve on 11th… pretty good comeback and a rise from the 15th place in the team ranking back in the top 8.

Now we are staying for one more week in Leogang to compete the IXS cup next weekend. In the meantime we are going to chill out and do some testing- so if you want to ride with the guys, come to Leogang and maybe you are lucky and meet them somewhere on the track.

Here you will find the results.

Stay tuned for some impressions coming soon!

Scotland Road Trip On Mtbfreeride.tv

admin — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 12:53:53 +0000

After we have been in Scotland for more than two weeks we have many stories to tell- but because the amount would blast the frame of a single post we did a kind of video summary of the whole trip, which get produced by the guys of mtbfreeride.tv.

more news on mtbfreeride.tv…

Filip’s Scotland Impressions:

admin — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:56:43 +0000

2 weeks on the road with Filip from Winterberg to Amsterdam to Innerleithen to Fort William produces a lot of stories, which would blast the volume of a single post. The impressions are so manifold and not just about racing- it’s more about the everyday life with the team and friends who become your family when you are on the road for so long during the race season.
As already said an exact renarration of more than 3 weeks on the road would blast the volume of a single post, but at least we can show you some personal impressions of Filip:

Back On Track With Races In Germany And Hungary

admin — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 19:16:22 +0000

After a really disappointing race weekend in Fort William/ SCO without a top placing we left UK for racing the “wheels of speed” in Willingen and a downhill race at the Balaton bike festival in Hungary.

While Steve, Luke, Brook and Lewis were staying in Willingen, Filip incurred the travails of a long trip and fly to Hungary to race at the Ballaton bike festival. Even it is not well known some other teams found their way to Hungary and so Filip raced again some of the top riders of the UCI world cup.

Text massage of Filip:
I smoked them all!!! Blenkinsop 2nd, Delfs 3rd, Straight 4th!!! Now to get home and drive till 10am! Than ready for Willingen pratice! See u soon!
After he had arrived in Willingen, Filip was able to qualify on 6th position. Steve was 4th in the seeding round and Luke was 14th. Also Lewis and Brook haven’t been far of and so we are in a good position for the “wheels of speed”.

Stay tuned for more news of the “wheels of speed”

Disappointing Weekend In Fort William

admin — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:16:03 +0000

It’s pretty hard to find words for what has happened this weekend. After Steve had the best time in the timed trainings sessions and a pretty decent qualifying where all 5 riders have been able to qualify in promising positions all riders failed in their race runs, because of bad luck and technical defects.

Lewis lost his handlebars and almost crashed into a crowed of spectators. It took him a while to get back on track and lost too much time to end up in a better position. Both Filip and Brook failed because of a defect, Luke wasn’t able to pin it as hard as he wanted to and Steve went down really hard and almost couldn’t finish his race run.

Watch the replay of the race on freecaster.tv and check the complete results on uci.ch.

It’s hard to couch it in words how disappointed this weekend was for the whole team, but there is nothing we can do about it. At least we can show you some shots of the race by Colin Meagher:

Now we are leaving Fort William and are back on the road to Willingen for the “Wheels of speed” and the next UCI world cup round in Leogang Austria.
We are looking forward to the next races to annul the bad result of Fort William.