On the 30^th December the final round of the National Trophy Series was also my final race for Diamondback. It was the conclusion of the five race winter cyclo-cross series and I had a 12 point lead over Matt Ellis.  This meant I has wearing the leaders yellow jersey and for the first time this winter had some pressure to finish in the top 3 if I wanted to win the Series for a sixth time.  If I finished third I could not be beaten for the overall series.

 The circuit chosen was in the opposite direction to that which was used for the London Open which I won on earlier this year.  It was still fast with some steep banks that were almost rideable and one which was a run-up. A couple of road sections and some slippery bit around some trees.  The road sections made the race very tactical, it was similar to a continental race, hard on the hard bits and easy on the easy.

 Phil Dixon lead the early charge with Roger Hammond, Matt Ellis, Stuart Blunt and I forming the lead group.  With the stop start nature of the racing riders caught our group only to be dropped half a lap latter.  Phil Dixon lost his chain and hence lost contact with the group. Stuart had the misfortune of puncturing twice on the last two laps. Phil after all his efforts lost out to Shaun Shoddon as he charged into 4^th place at the finish.

 This left Roger, Matt and I together with two laps to go.  Both of the other two were able to ride this bank, which I, normally in the third spot, had to dismount for.  This left me fighting to get back on again every lap.  The battle was for the win between Roger and Matt,  I was quite happy to spectate as I knew that they were more race ready than I and third place would give me the series.  With the road section with 200m to go Matt was on the front, Roger came off his wheel to win the race and I lost a couple of seconds, took third and the overall series.

 Six National Trophy wins equals the great Steve Douce, I am now looking forward to the Nationals in two weeks time at Ipswich.

 Barrie