Warming up for next weekend's National Hillclimb championship in Macclesfield, Mark 'PNuT' Arnold won the Eastern Counties Hillclimb on Saturday, from his ApiBikes.com/Specialized/Metrow Foods team-mate Martin Meades. PNuT's time of 2.14 was six seconds too fast for Meades, and Eastern Division road race champ Jeff Kapp could only manage third place.
With Andy Palmer in 6th, Api took the team prize. This was PNuT's first win since joining Api earlier in the month! Afterwards, he reflected on the upcoming national: "I'm not actually looking forward to it, as it's a very long hill climb, but I have nothing to loose really!"
Meades and Palmer were in action again on Sunday in the ECCA 23 mile 3-up team time trial, with James Millard. The trio could only manage second place behind the Api 'A' team of Zak Carr, Glenn Taylor and another new recruit Sam Barker. Barker, riding gears again now the F1 has been outlawed, helped Carr and Taylor to a winning time of 45.13, to score his first victory in Api colours.
"It hurt! Zak really is awesome!" was his reaction. Millard did the lions share of the work for the 'B' team, who finished just over a minute behind in 46.16. Leo RC finished in third in 48.43, with the Api 'C' team in 4th with 49.00.