Lonsdale falls to Swinny again
Having been heavily involved in the organisation of the Westmorland Club’s Lonsdale Trial on January 25 which was a Northern Centre Championship round, writing a positive report may seem to be gilding the lily, but the event went off without a hitch, it attracted 75 riders – a really decent entry in these challenging times and only 2 riders retired from the 30 section 18 mile on the road course.
Held over 3 classes, clubman, green riders on the 50/50 route and hard course competitors, it became very obvious early on that barring a major error it would again be a Tom Swindlehurst benefit trial. And so it was when the current Centre Champion went through the opening 8 sections without loss to gain an advantage that he held to the very end – though a five on the very last section of the trial was a surprise when other hard course riders went clean. Swinny lost 13 marks, runner up Wilf Shuttleworth went round for 18 with north east visitor John Crinson in third some way adrift with 35 marks to his name.
The sections at group three, Sandbanks proved particularly difficult with only Swindlehurst cleaning the first, though Ben Dignan and Ryan Dalton both managed the big step from the stream for ones; then on the massive hillclimb, all hard course riders failed and the slightly easier green/clubman version saw just a few cleans from Jason Scott, Stuart Gaskell and Green course winner Darren Wasley, with Mark Barrow the sole clubman clean on this so difficult climb.
With lots of sections intentionally quite easy to ensure the whole entry had a fair selection of hazards, Knipes, Packams one and two and the Railway line came and went before riders retraced the outward route to ride the final two sections back at Firbank Fell from where the trial started. There again, the rock pile took a lot of marks to finish off, including the five from Swindlehurst, but it made no difference to the hard course winner.
Best clubman course rider which was divided into age categories, under 40, over 40,50 and 60, Alistair Dalton and Doug Paton in the over 50s were best on 21 marks, over 40 winner Ross McCulloch finished on 26, under 40 winner Tom Hudson was on 28 and Paul Bennett took the over 60 class on 32, just as he had a week earlier at the Fisher trial.
Full results are under the Home page Results link and this week’s pictures in the gallery are again from Ian Abbott.