Corinium 2005
Words and Photos By Ben Falconer
Chairman Ian Vessey (969 penalties points) Anthony Moore (850), Mike Allen (1029), Gavin Bailey (815) and myself (Ben on 832) enjoyed probably the best Corinium Enduro in ages.
Four laps over 18 miles of regal forestry going on the Bathhurst Estate, with no super tight times to keep to ensured we all got in on time comfortably. Well, apart from Vess, who spent a fair bit of time extricating the KTM 200 from a tree and got in by 1 minute on the last lap.
It was not the mud bath that the place can become but it was slippery enough to keep it interesting and because organisers Swindon and District MCC had decided not to enforce a quick schedule, it meant none of us were worrying about which tree had our name written on it.
The measure of the club's success is not yet known but Mike finished, unscathed which is much cause for celebration (In fact this is his his first ever finish in an Enduro, we wish you many more now you've cracked it! ed.). Vess's arboricultural mishap aside, he finished well, as did Anthony on the Sherco.
Gavin Bailey and I spent the afternoon dicing with each other and it's fair to say that when he wound the wick up on the KTM 250 my Gasser 200 wasn't in the same game. But there's lots of twisty bits in Cirencester Park which evened it up. The only time we really had a proper race, I led Gav' past a large orange arrow pointing left. Anxious not to just link up with the nearest riders I could see - the course loops close to other parts often - I retraced our steps with no time loss.
Also on our minute were Cheltenham Home Guardians, Steve Venn who was once again a bit quicker than me, even at the age of 51 and Sam Wilson who also came in around the same time as Gav'.
To cap things off, Paul James got in to the spirit of things and arrived in a pretty much immaculate Jaguar XJS. Apparently it was fairly handy on the straights but a bugger to get through the trees.
Thought we'd include this shot: Wyegate competitor Andrew Weddle lost only a minute on the ex-Andy Gaunt 1977 CZ 250, If I am correct Andy Gaunt actually rode this one himself in a Corinium 20 years ago. Andy should be familiar to many of our Wyegate riders as he and Roger Ennis religiously ran the special test for hundred's of years!
Thanks to S&DMCC for putting on such an excellent event.