Chris Charalambous vs Bruno Silva de Oliveira. Photo: Dave Arnold
The UKSSA had been invited along to race at the Hogtoberfest event by Timmy Peters, one of the Southampton University crew, who had set the event up as a fun weekend featuring various workshops and downhill races for all skill levels. He had also encouraged universities to bring “fresher’s” along to share the stoke of downhill skating in all of its disciplines.
The mid October weather was very kind to us, with clear skies and glorious autumn sunshine bringing riders out in their droves. Louis and I got sign up going whilst Michael and an army of willing volunteers got the ramps and timing set up and Bruno and his helpers set the Hybrid course. Mick Reiss came along to watch the proceedings and very kindly offered to run the spreadsheets for the day.
We actually started our racing a lot later than anticipated this was largely due to Louis and I manning the main Hogtoberfest sign-up desk, it took almost an hour and a half to register the 150+ longboarders, downhillers, buttboarders, slalomers and in-liners who had shown up for the weekend. This is something that needs to be addressed for future events, we need to move away from people paying on the day where possible, it just takes far too long and eats in to precious time that could otherwise be spent on the track – but I digress!
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