The World Cup kick-off at Ft Bill!
The 2024 UCI World Downhill Season officially kicked off at Fort William Scotland this past weekend. As we all know Ft “Bill” always brings the party when it comes to track conditions, difficulty, and full sends down one of Downhill’s most iconic tracks – at Ft Bill you are either fight or you are food depending on how you handle its extreme variances in the course itself. This venue is very well known for chewing racers up and spitting them out! All we know is no matter how you look at it, if you are a racer on this track, you are in for one heck of a day!
Our athletes were out in numbers ready to roll the dice on the weather and deal some roosts. Representing The Gravity Cartel’s brands (Spank and iXS) was Frameworks Racing, Rogue Racing, Wyn Masters, Sam Blenkinsop and Luke Wayman. Here is a recap of how the race went for them.
Frameworks Racing
It was one heck of a weekend for Asa Vermette, coming off a fresh injury 4 weeks earlier, Asa showed up to Ft Bill and rode for the first-time post injury during his practice session, only one day of riding before taking the win in the Junior category. Asa has the racing spirit, keep an eye on him!
Frameworks Racing founder, Neko Mulally, finished up with a P38 spot in the semis, which he felt was better than where he would end up and is looking forward to more improvement over the season. However, Neko is stoked to see Asa push the clock to its limits and take the top prize!
Privateer Project (Wyn Masters/Luke Wayman)
Right behind Asa Vermette was privateer rider Luke Wayman, who shined brightly in qualifying. Luke qualified 5th and on race day drove his seat up 3 more spots in the finals edging out Daniel Parfitt by merely .2 seconds to take the P2 spot in the junior category.
No World Cup round will ever be complete without the Master himself, Wyn Masters! Wyn mixed a little ripping with a slight bit of rock massage on course, but in the end still was able to pull off some great commentary and race highlight stoke on WynTV!
Rogue Racing
Lorenzo (Lori) Mascherini from The Gravity Cartel/Rogue Racing putting in the work on the brutal racecourse to push himself into the 18th spot in the junior finals.
Sam Blenkinsop
The master of effortless style was in good form on his new team, Zerode Racing. Although he forgot his tear-offs in his run he managed to still have fun, even though on that same run (you know the one where he forgot his tear offs) it started raining, here is to just givin’ her all she has. We all wish we could corner like Blenki!
All in all, it was a great round 1 for the UCI World Cup DH. We are stoked for all our riders; everyone gave it their all and we cannot wait for round 2. Go get your Zurek soup ready as the next stop is in Poland! See you there!
More post-race action can be caught on Wyn TV:
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