New Northern Season start up
November heralds the start of the 2023 Northern Centre Trials Championship series, so for two months it’s the 2022/2023 series, and traditionally it is the Bassenthwaite Club that open the season which is what happed once again with the club’s D.K.Laing trial at Threlkeld Quarry near Keswick on November 6.
Being the start of a new season usually means a good entry but to receive 100 on-line entrants was beyond the club’s wildest dreams, and that was the total the club was prepared to accept due to the parking limitations at the venue.
Held on the fellside opposite the brooding, towering mountain known as Blencathra, the cloud cover prevented the top of the summit from being seen all day, but it failed to affect the trial actually held on Threlkeld Knotts and Clough Head, a location enjoyed by the club for many years thanks to the accommodating locals and the Lake District planners.
Overall winner Richard Gaskell Darren Brice
Cameron Brice finished on the same marks as his dad
Eager to start the new campaign in an attempt to wrest the Northern Centre title back from more recent winners, Richard Gaskell continued the fine form he has shown this year with a narrow but convincing win in the Expert class with the loss of just 11 marks after four laps of 10 sections, finishing two marks in front of the father and son combination of Darren and Cameron Brice.
Tom Swindlehurst, the defending champion had by his high standards an off day finishing eighth whilst Stephen Dixon, who has been Northern Centre Champion more times than most folks can remember showed that he can still be considered a challenger with fourth place.
Will Brockbank (lead image with rainbow ) was fifth on the Inch Perfect EM and showed that he is very much getting used to the electric machine and its different characteristics.
Philip Alderson Stuart Blythe
Sam Metcalfe
Philip Alderson and Stuart Blythe, travelling companions and visitors from over the border in Yorkshire were first and second over the Green course which used half the Clubman and half the Expert sections, with low scores of 9 and 14 whilst Carnforth’s Sam Metcalfe finished third with more cleans than Jack Dixon both of whom lost 19.
Dale Metcalfe Lewis Gaskell
The bulk of the 92 starters rode the Clubman course and it was Dale Metcalfe (no relation to Sam) who won the category from 15 year old Lewis Gaskell who racked up what was by far his best ever ride, missing out on the win by just a single mark. Adam Brayton was third whilst fourth place was a close run thing between Andy Downham, Andrew Dale and Simon Brice in that order with the most cleans etc deciding the order.
Inclement weather, almost a certainty in the Lake District in November failed to spoil the day for what was a excellent Centre Championship trial to kick off the new season.
Full results in 3 files (sorry – trouble uploading) in the Results page with more Kitch pics coming soon