Too tough for some
It is rare that retirements feature as the main story about a trial, but in the case of Cumberland County’s Round 2 of the Frank Smith series, that was unfortunately the case. Combined with a few non-starters in this pre-entry trial at Haresceugh high up on the Hartside Pass road over to Alston from Penrith, there were 27 retirements/non-starters and 29 finishers, but the problem was not the sections which were generally mild and sensible, but the atrocious weather both overnight and on the day made it incredibly difficult for the riders to get themselves out of the gullies as the land was so saturated that it became incredibly difficult to keep going.
But of the 29 that did manage to finish the four laps of 10 sections on this wind and rain swept hillside where the views were incredible, it was Lewis Gaskell who was the best on the main clubman course as the ever improving (and growing) youngster took a single mark win over Stuart Mowbray with returning veteran Neil Wilson in third, the marks being 3, 4 and 6. A similarly low score of 3 was all Paul Martin needed to win the Easy Clubman course from Alex Martin and Gordie Oliver.
Amongst the riders finding the terrain too tough for the day and perhaps more succinctly the bike, Phil Haygarth was one such rider and probably regretted choosing to ride his Bultaco in preference to a modern machine, but he did make good use of his single lap by GoProing all ten sections to provide a fascinating bit of footage of club trials in the high Pennines. Available on his page on You Tube, it proves the sections were imminently sensible but without video of the terrain that caused so many retirements, one can only imagine the chaos.
Full results are linked from the Home page of this site with Eric Kitchen’s pictures available as well. All credit to EK for continuing to support the sport in the Northern Centre, week in and week out in conditions that much younger persons would avoid. The observers did a cracking job as well in the conditions.