This proved to be the undoing of several riders with the drying mud clogging up chains and snapping off the rear gears.
Mallory Park once again lived up to its reputation as a nightmare for the series leaders with only one series leader, in the Women's race, being able to record a win and the leader's jersey changing hands in several of the races.
First up were the Juniors with National Junior Champion Tom Moses being made to work hard for the win by several riders.
Next followed the Women's race which included two of Britain's top International Mountain Bike riders neither of whom could cope with the course and two of the Junior women, with Hannah Barnes completing a weekend double after winning at Saturday evenings meeting at Manchester Track.
French visitor Perrine Philippe held third place for much of the race but faded to fifth place at the end finding the course tougher than most of those she is used to in France. Lucy Cash from Rugby Racing Cycling Club finished in 13th place.
The youth race was won by Solihull's Joseph Fox recording his second win in the series, with Rugby Velo's Steven Humphreys recording 19th place in the Under 14 category.
The veterans races had the largest number of competitors, in the over 40 category Rugby's Phil Roach finished fifth one place behind series leader Chris Young, an uncharacteristic fall dropping him from second place, which was enough to keep him in second place overall.
In the over 50 category Martin Eadon looked to be riding to an easy win when he also slipped on a bend half way round the last lap. Although he recovered well, there was not enough time for him to catch the two riders who had passed him.
Both these riders had spent the previous two days designing and putting up the course and the falls were probably due to the effort of this.
The Elite International Race supported by the East Midlands Development Agency, for the British riders, developed into a battle against mechanical trouble while the Frenchman Nicolas Bazin and Belgian Jan Van Dael seemed to float over the mud untroubled. British Champion Jody Crawforth suffered a breakage on the first lap and spent the rest of the race working his way up to third place just five second behind Jan Van Dael.
Nicholas Bazin became the first rider to win the race twice running and is keen to return to attempt the treble.
First rider to break a rear gear was Rugby's Ben Roach after just half a mile leaving him to run another half mile to the pits to change to his second bike dropping to last place in the process.
With every place counting in the Under 23 category Ben set about chasing and three quarters through the last lap had caught three riders racing for third place in the Under 23 category and in the final sprint missed out on third place by less than two inches to finish fourth and twenty second overall.
Pleasing to the organisers was Jan Van Dael's comment that Mallory Park was the best course he has ridden this year.