Our boys done good!!
Eighteen regular riders from the Northern Centre – like the Vikings (!!) – made a raid on the Isle of Man last week and took away some of the spoils when they took part in the Manx Classic Two Day Trial based on the first day, Saturday, from Castletown and from St Johns on day two.
Day one was very much based around the southern and western part of the island and on day two ventured further into the centre of the mountainous area where the terrain is very much more challenging.
There’s numerous classes to cater for the variety of machines, held over just two routes for pre 65 style machines, twinshock machines and new for this year, air-cooled monoshocks, which perhaps unexpectedly were few in number. Starters numbered 217, even though there were 239 names in the programme; the issue of non-starters of pre-entries being a common feature of big events these days.
Best class result of a Northern entrant was that of Peter Blowers who won the Clubman air-cooled monoshock class on his Montesa with the next best place holder being Centre Chairman Angus Jenkinson who had a great ride to take fifth overall in the Pre 65 Clubman class.
Neil Buckley on one of the many stream slab sections in the trial………Nick Shield in South Barrule Quarry
Nick Shield and Michael Irving battled together over the two days finishing just two marks apart on 20 and 22 with Nick taking sixth in the Pre 65 Premier class and Michael eighth. Their weekend battle saw Shield lead the first day on 8 to Irving’s 14 with the roles reversed on Sunday with Irving on 8 and Shield on 12 with the total number of sections cleaned being 49 and 50 to Shield and Irving. Not only were their results so close, the two Drayton BSAs looked almost identical but Shield was on a C15 250cc version whilst Irving had a 350 B40 engine in his.
Other notable results were eighth by Neil Buckley in the Pre 65 Clubman and Luke Furness took third in the Twinshock Premier class for riders under 35. Perhaps sensibly, for many years riders under 35 have been ineligible to win the trial outright so whilst Ben Butterworth, who does ride in Cumbria on a occasional basis, shared the lowest score in the Premier class with Juan Knight with both on 3 marks, it was Knight who was the official winner just as he was in 2010, 2011 and 1012.
Best Clubman result overall was by Yamaha mounted Irish rider Keith Annett.