Occasionally we end up with some articles that don’t quite make it into the magazine – usually because we don’t quite get enough photos in time or we get a brain melt and forget to put ‘em in. Rather than leaving them to rot in the murky vaults of my laptop we’ll be getting them online as part of our new ‘OVERFLOW’ series.

First up is this interview with Jon from MIJ Downhill Events, the team behind the new Taff Buggy Downhill Series. Rd 2 of the series is this weekend.

The Buggy is Back

Interview by Jamie Edwards

Images by http://www.mijdownhillevents.co.uk/
  

MIJ Downhill Events is a 3 man team that have brought racing back to the classic South Wales track at Taff Buggy.  With their series about to kick off we thought we better see what they’ve got planned. Here’s Jon from MIJ:

 
Welcome to Wideopen Jon! Can you gimme a quick intro to the MIJ team? Who are you all and what’s your background in bike racing?
The team at MIJ are Martin Henry, Ian Bray and Jon Davies, however, the real team are the dozens of people who have encouraged us to set this up.  There’s the main sponsor, Don Skene especially Gareth from Skenes who will travel to an event and keep bikes running smoothly at no charge.  Also, all the individuals who simply help out.
Taff Buggy is so much fun, it has a bit of everything in a 2 minute run.  It’s fast, steep in parts, rooty, its got jumps and berms and rocks.  The main reason is that this course hasn’t been used in a while and we all remember the grins on people’s faces when they’ve ridden it in the past.  We were looking at doing some events on private land, Taff Buggy was the nearest so that’s where we started.  With the sad loss of the Dragon Downhill Series, this was the kick up the butt we needed to do it.
 
What’s your view on the UK race scene up to now? Has it had any impact on you wanting to put on a race yourself?
The UK race series is going through a stage of change, it’s unavoidable but needed and it’ll change again, hopefully always for the better to make the sport exciting, challenging but safe.
 
We are in a recession at the moment we all know that but this has given us an opportunity to offer racing and uplift days at a reasonable cost.  The 3 of us all work so we can trim the prices and are always looking at ways of keeping entry fees as low as possible.
 
For those of us that haven’t ridden Taff so far – what’s the track like? 
FUN!!  It’s not the line through a field that somebody commented on after seeing a photo of the start. It’s got everything in one course and it’s fast. It’s all about speed.  We have made a few changes from the original track and have more planned for rounds 2 & 3.



Are you going to have an uplift or are we going to be pushing?
We are using uplifts, we are using good old fashioned tractors and trailers and have bought a boat load of thick foam, so we have the foam in between the bikes, this worked a treat at our last uplift day.
 
What are you aiming for with the series? What’s it going to take for you to be happy that you’ve pulled it off well?
The 3 of us have had this discussion 100 times. The main thing that we want to achieve is to re-establish Taff Buggy as a race venue and to make it as enjoyable as possible for everyone.  We are not looking to be heroes.
 
What makes us happy is when our entrants are happy, when parents make a point of approaching us to say “Thanks” and the texts that fly around for a good 2 or 3 days after an event.
 
Also we are still learning ourselves, the fact that people have come back again and again to our events hasn’t so much told us we have pulled it off, but are getting there.
 
What sort of stuff have you come up against trying to get race together? Any problems or funny stories so far?!
We haven’t had any horror stories or brick walls while setting up.  Hopkin and Colin at Taff Buggy have been brilliant and Ian at Caersws is as supportive as ever.  We’ve had to a lot of “googling” to find out about legislations, but fortunately we all know enough people in the sport and we can always ask them. The guys at the BC have been very helpful as have the good folk at the forestry commission.
 
Funny stories, yeah we go a few.  Tom Matthews doing a run in his boxers was funny, it was freezing but he did it.  I think that he wished he didn’t though by looking at him as he got off his lift back to the van. He was going to do it for charity but forgot to tell anyone!!
 
Leon Rosser spent hours building a kicker into a hip jump, it was a real work of art.  When he took his first run into it you could see the look on his face, if he had hit that kicker he would have ended up in Tesco’s car park.  So Leon, Stanny and a few others moved it back and now it’s a really good feature.  See the photos on the website.
 
Also we asked Sam Webster and Aimee Dix to get some earth to build up a berm, so off they went with a wheel barrow about 150 yards down a hill and dug a hole, they then had to keep on pushing that barrow up the hill.  The thing is that there was a tonne of earth within 6 feet of the berm!Entries are vital for us to keep going and so far we have been well supported. We don’t expect to sell out our events, yet, because there is a lot of choice around and money is tight for a lot of families. But yeah the entries keep coming in, especially of the Friday, when people panic because they’ve left the entry form behind the bread bin. We have online entries at www.mijdownhillevents.co.uk and postal entries open now.
 
Last but not least – who’se your money on for the win? Any predictions?
Our only answer to that question, is “Everyone”.

What’s made you guys want to put on a race series at Taff Buggy then?

 

How are the entries looking so far and what have folks got to do to get signed up?
 

Round 1 went down a treat with Dan Stanbridge taking the win followed by Leon Rosser then Ashley Maller. Round 2 is this weekend (18/19th April). Good luck to everyone that’s involved!

Cheers to Ian for his time. For more info or to get signed up visit www.mijdownhillevents.co.uk