The Ivor Morkot Long Distance Trial - 30th July 2005

Results from Bob Mullins' Enduro News site  

The Ivor Morkot Memorial Trial was the first round of the new ACU Trail Bike Trial Championship, and what an excellent job the Caerphilly club made of it. We had a pretty good entry from the club including a few of our Wyegate entry riding under our banner (in fact, Bristolians Paul Cox on his XR650 and Andy Nicholas topped the rest of us locals, both on 27.)

Our top local was Dave Harris on his Pampera dropping 40 but second was Bionic Stan Howitt also on 40 but loosing out at the tie deciding dark forestry Enduro style special test. You definitely needed some bottle to power it down a steep narrow track and then fight for grip on the final stony climb. This makes it even more impressive that Mike Wells had the 3rd fastest time out of the 150 strong entry (36.37 secs). Stan did get revenge for losing out on the test by being the only one of us to get all the way up the horrendous hill climb which was littered with roots and stones, plus it was in the dark!

Mike lost 52 on observation but was beaten by Jimmy Marshall and Jack Pegler on 45 and 46 respectively, and Jonathan Philips from Hereford on 49.

Following on down the list was Cliff Hannam who started out having a bad day, what with 2 dopey dabs in the first warm-up section at the Bedwas rugby club start venue. As the day wore on Cliff changed the tune on his ridding buddies of Roy Breakwell and Colin Jones after a pleasant lunch stop a thousand feet above Crumlin, his knees warmed up and he only dropped 10 the rest of the day whereas Roy and I dropped 30 or more.

Steve Biddle obviously enjoyed the special test with a creditable 38.93 secs and beat me by one mark with 67. Wayne Hewitt had a bad start to the day with a maximum on the warm-up section, and continued to either clean or 5 virtually every section with no half measures. Glen Thomas also blotted his copybook at the outset but by no means was the loser out of our club members, as that would be all of you that didn't enter. You missed out on 70 miles of marvellous tracks, through forestry and deciduous tree lined lanes around some of South Wales' best kept secret landscapes. It really isn't all terraces you know.

The mix of sections was just about spot on as only one rider managed to clean the whole day and that was our Wyegate winner of Julian Page. Our friends in the CHG nearly did the business again with Steve Venn dropping a dab on a camber that was cleaned by many. This dropped him to 3rd and David Eeles came 6th on 4. Now here is, what would be a first, if your name wasn't Lampkin. How many times can you get the whole family in the top 10%? with Spud 5th, Ken 8th and Dad (Roger Brown) 16th. Now, if only we could get Dot entered too!

So we must say a special thank you to the girls and guys in the Caerphilly club for putting it all together into a really good event package. Of course, we did our bit by lending them our Clerk of the Course Julian Bishop who was very ably assisted by Jimmy Witts and Nibbs. And being a generous club, we also loaned them a marshal in the form of Rod Jones.

Almost forgot to mention the weather! because that is what they do in all professional reports.. isn't it? I think it rained a bit on the way round and we didn't see the sun until we were driving home. But somehow, it seemed like it was a beautiful day all day long. Which must have made a fabulous evening for the many that stayed on for the evening do. 

The next round was the Fred Rist Trial which has now happened. Read our report...

Here is how most of us got on: (full results here)

Dave Harris 40, Stan Howitt 40(Slower on test), Jimmy Marshall 45, Jack Pegler 46, Jonathan Philips 49, Mike Wells 52, Cliff Hannam 55, Roy Breakwell 57,Steve Biddle 67, Colin Jones 67, Wayne Hewitt 79, Glen Thomas 94.