November 26th and 27th saw the annual pilgrimage to Eccles Fit City, Manchester for  the 2011 British Indoor Individual and Team Championships.

Four Ipswich riders had entered, Ashley Hill – u16 and u19, Lewis Roberts u16 and Open, Matthew Hill u16 and Jack Chaplin u13.

It started early on Saturday for Ash with the qualifying round for the under 16’s starting at 8.30am.  Matt and Lewis having been drawn straight into the semi finals, Ash also making it through to the semi’s.  In the semi finals both Lewis and Matt had some trouble getting to grips with the circuit and failed to make it to the final, however., Ash did make it through and therefore Ipswich were represented in the final.  Straight after, Ash then had to ride  in the under 19 pre-qualifier in which he also made it to the final.  In the under 19 final Ash scored 8 points and in the under 16 final he scored 15 points putting him in 5th place.

On the Sunday it was Jack’s turn for an early 8.30am start, qualifying easily for the under 13 final, it was then onto the under 19 team championship.  Ipswich being drawn in the 1st semi, along with Astley and Tyldesley, Leicester, Edinburgh, Sheffield and Poole.  Poole last years champions looked by far the stronger team and with only 2 teams going through, it looked like an uphill struggle to make it to the final. However, Ipswich riders had other ideas and with both Lewis and Matt looking much more comfortable with the track on Sunday, some of the other teams appeared to be in for a shock with every rider completing 1 ride, Ipswich were in 1st place – 1 point ahead of Poole.

In the next 3 rounds of races, Poole managed to pull out a lead and the race was on to fill the other final spot, Ipswich and Edinburgh looked the most likely and so it was that it all went down to the final race, Ipswich on 51 points, Edinburgh on 52, Ash needed to finals 2 places in front of the Edinburgh rider, Joe Kemp from Leicester made the gate, Ash in 2nd with Dougie Morgan from Edinburgh 3rd, Dougie knowing that he needed to beat the Ipswich rider, tried just a bit too hard and fell on the tapes bend failing to score so Ipswich were in the final.

The qualifying for the senior final was next, but with 3 semi’s you needed to be in the top 5, Lewis was always going to be up against it he did, however, look much better than the day before and gave some of the more established riders something to think about with his action never say die style.

In his first ever venture indoors, Jack put up a good performance in the under 13 final scoring 12 points, putting him in the top 10 and with another 3 years left at this age level he wil, i’m sure, improve at future events.

In the Junior Team Final, Ipswich were again up against Poole with Stockport and Horspath also making it to the final.  Ipswich were happy to have made the final and were severely outgunned, but as usual, everyone rode as hard as they could, both Ash and Lewis taking falls probably trying too hard .

The final scores Poole 43, Stockport 42, Horspath 40 and Ipswich 25.
Ipswich Scorers Ash 6, Lewis 6, Matt 6 and Jack 7.

A special mention must go to Jack who at 10, came into the team riding against young men twice his age. Well done to all the lads for taking part, you have done Ipswich proud, a great weekend was had by all.