D3 round 1 falls to Tom
Holmscales Activity Centre is an all weather centre and it’s a good job it is for the Lakes GTRC D3 Racing trial, the first round of this year’s series was hit by lots of rain and very strong winds which made for a pretty unpleasant day for those NOT on a bike.
Riding trials when the weather is inclement is always less exacting than spectating or observing, and that proved the case with only two retirements from the 44 strong entry – an entry figure much lower than is normally the case at this venue at this time of the year.
Tom Middleton was the winner over the hard course by six marks from Ben Butterworth who was debuting his new 300 Beta Sinchro, a large batch of which had recently been delivered to John Lampkin Imports – all pre-sold of course such has been the anticipation for the first truly brand new, redesigned Beta for 16 years. Sam Metcalfe was in third place with D3 sponsor Neil Crayston’s son Burts taking fourth.
Bradley Butterworth (no relation to Ben) was the clubman class winner by virtue of more cleans than Mark Quinn who both lost 14 marks with 200 Fantic mounted Aden Jackson in third and Gary Kitching in fourth.
Eleven riders took to the easy clubman course with Davy Maxwell winning with ease, losing only a single mark from Graham Knight on his 200 Fantic.
Full results are available from the Results link on the Home page and shortly there will be a video of the trial on You Tube channel, “2wheels Off-road” – probably Tuesday morning or soon afterwards.