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Graythwaite round 1 Neec 27th April Barrow MCC Wood wins wet Graythwaite Report dirtbike-traxs The hard working Barrow mcc club staged the opening round of the NTB Husqvarna sponsored North of England Enduro Championship at the Graythwaite forestry complex near Newby Bridge Cumbria last weekend 27th April. This long established championship offers 6 different venues with 8 rounds and is one of the best time card championships in the Uk. The course - renowned for being hard but immensely popular with riders - once again lived up to its reputation of providing the ultimate riding challenge. The going was made even harder by the relentless rain in the previous 24 hours. The lap - 16 miles in length - was split in to 3 time checks, one of which was a fuel check. The start to the out check would prove the hardest of the day. At 10.30 am the first of the full entry were off, with the elite
championship riders leading the way to time check 1 with 4 laps of
the course ahead of them, a total of 11 time checks & 3 special
tests to decided the winner. Gav houson - fresh from his adventures
in Italy - was setting a brisk pace on the MPS Racing husky during
the early stages, but by lap 3 he had retired with a holed casing
despite his best efforts to effect a repair. By lap 4 the
championship class would be decimated with retirements, the Biffster
Sandiford Honda crashed on route to the first check. Vince Harker mps
racing husky crashed on the second lap dislocating and breaking his
finger. Danny field suffered mechanical failure on lap 2. Mark
Anderson retired on lap 2. This left Andrew Hackett, David Wood and
Michael Irvine to fight it out. Woods looked visibly quicker through
the 2 mile fell side special test and this was proved in the results
as In the expert class all the young pretenders to the championship crown where out ridden by the old chap from Batley Mark Houson on his MPS Racing husky who took a fine win from D3 rider Gavin Hazlett. The clubman class - which is split into 3 capacity groups - saw dirtbike-traxs rider john Bradford win the E2 class and the clubman class overall. Jonathon Hughes won the E1 clubman class while Levi Johnson took top spot in the E3 class. Mark Bell on his Sandiford Honda finished second in the sportsman E1 class despite having to free his back wheel which became entangled in fencing wire on his last lap while fighting for top spot . This was a tough opening round to the championship made worse by the heavy rain and all the riders that finished can count themselves as personal winners. The first time check certainly caught out a large amount of riders who found themselves late. Great respect must be given to the Barrow club who keep this event going on a small piece of land in forestry terms, always finding new routes and repairing old routes. The championship moves to Langdale in North Yorkshire where the Ryedale club will host the second round of this prestigious time card championship on the 11th of May
Round one of the North of England championship proved very interesting as the country's top two Enduro riders Paul Edmondson and Tom Sagar (left) decided to attend which caused alot of interest. The Barrow and district motor club had plotted a 20 mile course in the forests of Graythwaite estate, it was obvious to me since my last visit about 3 years ago that they had spent many hours planning the route and done allot of good work. The course was really interesting with more variety and technical sections than most events, it could be described as a True Enduro course and probably best left to riders with more experience or allot of determination. Leading up to the event we had several weeks of very good weather and the event should really have been quite easy, but the night before it just rained solid and continued throughout the day. The planned easy course turn out very tough, still very rideable because there is a good solid rock base to this land but lots of ruts and roots and the odd boggy section. Check times were set on the slack side and the Championship riders had 4 laps and 3 special tests to decide the winner. The test was on open fellside, quite long and fast with a few stream crossings, most of the top riders rode it like a fast check, its not possible to really hang it out on a test like this because you never know just were the next rock is and both Tom and Eddy did not get chance to walk and study the test, they just had one free lap to quickly learn the long test. Tom won the first test by 7 seconds from Paul and then they each both won a test at the next two attempts by a second a piece, so Tom took the day by 7 seconds and finally beat the enduro master. Both Paul and Tom are riding on a similar pace and its going to be a good fight between this pair when we start the British Enduro championships in July.
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2007 Graythwaite
Enduro Report by Julian Stevens KTM D3-Racing