Here's to the next 100 years
By TMX Archives on 6th May 11
With the Scottish Six Days Trial celebrating its 100th anniversary what else would we talk about this week?
One hundred years is a long time in anyone's book (and no, since you're asking, I am not quite that old just yet!) and in terms of motor sport the completion of a maiden century almost encompasses the entire history.
So the Scottish Six Days Trial celebrating its 100th anniversary this year really is a unique milestone and one that the organising Edinburgh and District Motor Club is quite right to make a song and dance about.
The chance to ride in the centenary event was a huge draw and all those who got rides are indeed privileged. Nigel Birkett, who is celebrating 40-years of riding the Scottish, was allotted the honour of riding under number 100 this year and Birks shrugged off all suggestions as to what the 100 stood for. No, he wasn't around for the first Scottish in 1911 and no he isn't 100 years old, etc, etc...
There hasn't actually been 100 Scottish Six Days Trials. Obviously quite a few are missing thanks to the effect of two world wars, Foot and Mouth disease and what have you and this is Nigel's 39th SSDT as there was no trial in 2001 due to Foot and Mouth so he isn't actually far short of having competed in 50% of the trials held to date.
There was quite a gathering of former winners at this year's event (recorded elsewhere in this issue) headed by Sammy Miller and Gordon Jackson, two trials legends, who led Sunday's parade through Fort William.
Yrjo Vesterinen turned out on his 1980 winning Montesa which he has returned to superb original condition, complete with his original Scottish number boards, while Bill Wilkinson brought his 1969 winning Greeves, which has been restored to better than new condition. This was the last winning ride on a British bike and ‘Wilks' is rightly proud of the achievement.
The 100 years SSDT anniversary rubbed-off on this year's Pre-65 Two-day Trial, with large crowds turning out on the hillsides surrounding the Highland village of Kinlochleven, aided and abetted by amazingly sunny weather. Apart from the riders, with an entry jam-packed with characters, a huge attraction of the Pre-65 is the sheer variety of machinery. Sure, there are plenty of fancy (sorry, I meant bog-standard) Cubs and James' and this year's flavour of the month, BSA Bantams – mostly sporting (cough), post '65 engines – which doesn't worry me in the slightest but I earwigged more than one conversation where this was being frowned upon.
But there were plenty of big singles and twins which ranged from the almost frighteningly original (why would you risk such a bike in such a tough trial?) to the equally frighteningly trick, which, if you had to put a date on would be more or less 2011. The crowd favourites are inevitably the rasping Triumph twins.
There were more than a few Dots around this year, mainly thanks to Julian Wigg's release of ‘original' chassis, manufactured from tubing obtained from the Manchester works. I commented on one particularly sweet-running version that was whispering up Pipeline to Wigg Snr as he weighed-up the line and he instantly quipped: "That's because we had nothing to do with the engine!”
It's people like Julian, Dave Thorpe, Arthur Browning, Peter Salt, Peter and Neil Gaunt, Colin and Scott Dommett, Roger Williams, Jock McComisky and a whole host of characters that keep me and a whole host of others returning to the event year after year. You won't find entertainment like it anywhere else on earth!
That's not to say that there aren't characters in the Six Days itself, of course there are and led by one of the best trials riders we have ever seen. Dougie Lampkin follows in the great Lampkin tradition of exceptional characters like his dad Martin and uncle Arthur. Doug podged a long queue for scrutineering on Sunday, edging in front of a long-standing line including Woody Hole, Mark Jackson, Martin Craven and Simon Sharp informing them with relish that he was, in fact, only following official instructions.
"I've read the rules” informed Doug, "And it clearly states that you must use the official pit lane at all times. That's what I'm doing, it's you lot that's wrong!”
The Sunday ‘weigh-in', where machines are checked and officially marked before being ‘locked' into parc ferme is quite unique to trials these days.
Compared to days gone by, when virtually all components were marked, these days it is only the main frame and engine cases that are blobbed with official paint and the riding number scratched into the wet paint, but it is all part of the Scottish tradition and adds to the build-up of what is still the most important trial in the calendar.
The event is still the ultimate test of a trials machine and of enormous importance to the manufacturers. If a bike has a fault there is no trial in the world like the Scottish for finding it.
So, by tomorrow night (Saturday) it will all be over and we'll know who the winners and losers of the 2011 Scottish are. There's big kudos for winning the trial on its 100th anniversary – here's to the next 100 – if we should be so lucky!
