Last Sunday we held the ERSA Champs are the Hemel Indoor centre. Meant an early start to the day and if I hadn’t been held up on the M25 by an accident would have been there at 6.20am (yeah I know stupid time)!

It was the first regional champs to be held indoors and meant even more preparation work had to be done upfront. In reality it is just another race and you need to organise the jobs for people beforehand. Most people you ask are more than happy to help and it was great to see so many new parents involved, hopefully this will continue into the season next year. This year has been a good one for new parents coming on board and without them these races wouldn’t happen.

We had a good turnout for the champs, about 140 racers, from all over the region. The champs take the format of a Grand Prix with two runs on different courses. As it turned out the courses were fine and most people coped very well. There were some very interesting results from the day, ones you wouldn’t have expected at the start of the season, which was good as it wasn’t a fore gone conclusion.

What is quite entertaining as well as sometimes frustrating is just how such races bring the best out in some people, good and bad! So many egos, so many battles, so many trying to prove who is best, who knows more, those who will stab you in the back the second it is turned, and then we have racers who behave incredibly well!! At the end of the day most people have their hearts in the right place and the emotion and adrenalin keeps things going.

Even Graham Bell turned up at the snow centre much to the delight of most of the mums there, but sadly not for our event but some filming for Ski Sunday!

In the end it was a great day and everyone seemed to enjoy it and a big thanks to all those taking part and helping.