March Hare 2nd Mar 2008
Report and Photos by Ben Falconer
BONE dry ground made for one of the easiest March Hare LDT's for ages and it was a welcome change from last year's downpour.
Check out previous years' reports for what makes Golden Valley Classic MCC (AMCA) a brilliant event but it boils down to having some exquisite terrain and lots of it. So first of all, may I thank the organisers for yet another perfect event.
The start, though was not quite perfect for Team Falconer. Riding just a few miles to Hunters Hall, I picked up a puncture on the A46. Riding for a few miles with a flat did make it fairly easy to get the rather warm tyre off the rim. While my mechanic wrestled with that, I ran round picking up a stand (Steve Hancox's kit box) and a pump from the organisers. Thank you both.
Thanks to a seized motor on dad's Pamp during a shakedown ride, he'd reverted to the "works" Bultaco - and got it taxed, insured and MoT'd in a day!
Sadly the MoT doesn't require the ignition to be spot-on, so we spent a fair amount of time changing spark plugs. We had 3 and each one had at least 3 stints in the head.
But it got dad round, which considering it was last on the road in 1998, wasn't bad.
Source of much amusement on the day were Glenn and sidekick Dave. Their deadly sense of competition rose to a cresendo at the special test, where Dave had a slight off. How we laughed. But what goes around comes around and on the next section I lost the first marks of the day, a five for missing an ends cards. I think that's what's called bad karma.
After that I had a dab as I was in a bit of a temper with myself (how grown-up) but still managed to win the trail over 250 class on 6. Then again, Barry Ward was on a 300 KTM and dropped 9, while Jason Aylett (winner of the CHG's Hazleton Trial ) dropped 13 riding a Tenere 660!
And we were on the "Easy Route". Trail riders could choose to take the hard route and regular Wyegaters Mike Husband and Keith Wells lost 8 and 10 respectively, doing it the hard way.
One of the Western Centre's newer Experts, Henry Bendall, dropped a mark, and took 3rd in the up to 250 trail bike class, as he was just edged out on special test time. His minders, Pete Hughes and dad Alf suffered mechanical breakdowns, reportedly on the same section. The winner of that class, Trevor Wall, was the only rider to post a clean ride, out of around 160 riders.
Ian Hannam and Deb Smith won the British Sidecar class on 25.
Plenty of WGDF MCC riders had good days - Stan Howitt lost 8, Nick Worgan 14, Roy Breakwell 18, Dave Harris and Darren Thomas 28, Martin Worgan 49, and Bill Brown 51 while the others might not thank me for publicising their scores. It really was irrelevent though, as we had a magnificent day out, regardless of whether you'd lost a stack or a silly dab.
There was one more mechanical gremlin that struck before the end of the day - CHG's Viv Jackson coasted to a halt within about a mile of the finish. With no drive, it seemed the chain had come off. Well it had, kind of - there was no sign of the front sprocket! Unable to locate it, he was towed in by team mate Robin Looms. Robin may still be trying to un-knot his jacket, which was used as a temporary rope.
Thanks again to the club, and of course, observers and landowners.