Farnham Park 16.96 :-D

Urmmm do I really need to write anything else?! ;-)

Ok, we had 4 teams in. Extraset and Rockets ran Saturday. Extraset were on 1st in division 7 with a team of Jemma, Perry, Smartie and Jamie. Things all started well, Jem was really focused and all the dogs were running consistently. We won the 1st race with a best time of 19.90 (0.05 off our seed time). Unfortunately Jemma got injured in the last leg of the 2nd race which meant we were down to 3 dogs for the rest of the day. Amazingly those 2 wins managed to get us 3rd place as we were in a 3 way tie and had the fastest time!

Rockets were in division 6 with a team greatly strengthened by the return of thee Diefer (and everyones fingers, toes and just about everything else crossed that he would do 12")! Team was Dief, Merlin, Elliot, Sonny and Loki. As Sarah was there to run Mr E I was in charge of the team. It was a real pleasure, all the dogs ran so well. So happy for Claire that Dief ran over the 12, and he looked really good running 4.4s. He's not at race fitness yet either so hopefully there is more to come from him. Merlin was flying, he ran consistently at 4.6s all day which is about 0.2 faster than he was running when he came out. Elliot ran around 4.6s and box turn seemed better than at Anstey Park but again improved through the day. Sonny was good in the early races running around 4.7s but tired towards the end of the day. Loki was awesome, he is just so strong coming back and really proved himself in our race against fantastic 4 when he was going out just behind their last (v quick) dog and managed to run a new PB of 4.17secs to win us the race. I hope he keeps this up, then he might be shifted up a team! The team managed to win 4 out of 5 of their races just losing 1 race on silly lights to come 1st with a best time (and fastest ever for Rockets) of 18.30secs! Yay! There was definitely still some room on the changeovers too!

Ballistics and Missiles ran Sunday. Unfortunately they were both on at the same time (in different rings) which meant I didn't get to see much of the Missiles racing. I think they managed to win 2 of their races and came 4th. Ballistics were 5th seed in division 1. We had a team of Asher, Shani, Luna and Lacy in that order. 1st race against Shooting Stars we finally managed to get our act together to run a new fastest ever time of 16.96secs and enter the 16s club, woohooo! And I was late on my start with a 0.13, terrible! We lost very narrowly to Shooting Stars, they hit a 16.92 in the same race. We continued to have close racing for the rest of the day and we were fairly conistent with our times running low 17s. We also did a 16.88 with a very small light on Shani due to Asher slightly fumbling the ball. We managed to win our races against Jets, Bassetts and Lightning. We lost very narrowly to High Flyers on a light on the 2-2 deciding leg! Jolly Jumpers beat us pretty convincingly but annoyingly that was the race where our changes were the furthest out and we weren't that far behind! So we finished 4th. Although I couldn't really of cared less, the time was enough for me :-). Asher ran 3.8s in the 1st race of the morning and afternoon but got really tired as the racing went on. I'm now thinking it might just be fitness as maybe I've wrapped him in cottonwool and haven't pushed him as much as I should out on walks. I've rectified this now and I don't think he quite knows whats hit him! Shani ran sooo much better in the pack and went back to running 4-4.1s. Luna was flying, running quite consistent (so I'm told) 4.3s. Lacy was a touch inconsistent as it was her 1st time running anchor and she was relishing the opportunity to race the other team. This meant for the 1st couple of races she was coming quite wide off the box. She was alot better in the afternoon so hopefully the wide turns won't continue or she won't be able to go last either! Other than the turns her foot speed was really good and I understand she hit a few 4.2s which is excellent for her.

I'm so thrilled to join the 16s club and I'm so proud of my team and how far we have come over the last couple of years, lets hope we keep on progressing and getting faster. Thanks to everyone who has sent messages of congratulations, it really means alot!