Knight vision...
By TMX Archives on 24th Feb 10
RED Bull KTM rider David Knight rightfully reclaimed his Tough One crown at the weekend with a stunning victory at Nantmawr Quarry, against the biggest field of international riders ever to grace the event.The hype surrounding the 2010 TM Racing Tough One stepped up a gear just days before the event with the withdrawal of KTM Factory rider Taddy Blazusiak. The battle between Knight and Blazusiak was eagerly awaited by spectators, but was not to be as Taddy was suffering with a bad bout of flu.
A six-week delay due to bad weather saw the event shifted from January to mid February and, typically, the weather the day before the event was horrendous. The floor of Nantmawr Quarry was covered in an inch of ice on Friday morning but weak sunshine soon cleared the area.
On event day, Saturday, a few flakes of snow were blowing in the wind but luckily the sun won through once again and conditions were perfect for the sixth running of the Tough One.
Report and Pictures: TIM TIGHE
A few changes had been planned to previous years. Pro riders had to qualify for the front row of the start line by competing in the Kriega Hot Laps qualifying session. Transponder timed, the event within an event proved to be very popular amongst the Pros.
The Kriega course included a very steep downhill with tight left hand turn at the base, on loose shale, in addition to the trailer section, tyres and logs, a skip and the natural tough terrain itself.
Riders blasted off from the quarry floor, around the top edge before re-entering the arena. It was all very spectacular, when combined with running commentary from Roger Harvey and Nik Fisk.
Just to add to the tough test the Pro riders were to face, the Expert riders began their Tough One race nearly half a lap ahead on the open fields surrounding the quarry while the Pros started down in the quarry floor, so not only did they have to battle the course itself but also try and work their way through the ranks of Expert riders.
Paul Edmondson grabbed the holeshot beneath the start-line arch on his 250 Putoline Suzuki but Knighter soon powered to the front and quickly made his way through most of the Expert riders, re-entering the quarry at the base of the Root of All Evil climb with only a couple of Experts ahead of him. Dougie Lampkin had powered his Factory Beta into second spot but was overtaken by Tom Sagar on the Putoline Suzuki RMZ250 and Graham Jarvis on the 250 factory Sherco.
Sagar continued to tail Knight but crashed a couple of times allowing Jarvis and Lampkin to close and pass him. However Sagar's faster speed on the more open field section of the course soon reeled in the two trials stars.
Jarvis suffered a few technical difficulties, drowning the Sherco in the big pool at the base of a climb and taking some time to get it restarted before his clutch finally gave out after nine laps.
Lampkin immediately pounced and grabbed third spot behind Knight and Sagar, keeping clear of New Zealander Rory Mead aboard his 250 Yamaha.
Eurotek KTM rider Paul Bolton did well to maintain fifth spot, all the riders ahead of him rode
full time, so he was in good company for a part-timer Ben Hemingway had the race of his life with a well-deserved sixth spot. Hemingway had another of the Knight clan on his tail, Juan on a 250 Gas Gas and Rich Ellwood, who was just managing to keep ahead of the leading German rider.
Behind the Brits was a string of factory-backed riders. Germany's Andreas Lettenbichler on a Factory BMW 450X fought hard for just outside the top ten with team mate Simo Kirrsi from Finland a couple of places ahead and Rudi Poschl a couple behind.
Riaan Van Niekirk flew the flag for KTM South Africa with team-mates Darryl Curtis and Chris Birch maintaining their positions just a few places behind.
Gary Daniels took a convincing win by a clear lap in the Expert class just beating the two hour mark by two minutes to get an extra lap in ahead of Gary Jenkins in second. Stephen Dixon proved the reliability of his Scorpa T-Ride, the only one in the whole event, by taking third place seven-minutes behind Jenkins.
Pascal Berlingieri from Belgium was very happy to ride hard for fourth in a challenging field of Expert riders as Gavin Johnson followed him home in fifth.
The day belonged to Knighter, back on KTM machinery at an event he has made his own, finishing in style and lapping the whole field apart from second placed Sagar, to win by a clear ten-minutes.
In some ways this Tough One wasn't as tough as previous events but it was definitely all about racing and allowing riders the chance to show their stuff rather than setting impossible obstacles that only a small minority of riders could attempt.
As an event it remains the UK's number one Extreme challenge bar none.
TOUGH ONE XTREME SCRAMBLE
Nantmawr Quarry, nr Oswestry, Shrops
(WOR Events)
TM RACING TOUGH ONE
PRO: 1 David Knight (Red Bull KTM) 14 laps - 4:04 time penalties, 2 Tom Sagar (Fast Eddy Suzuki) 14 - 14:13, 3 Dougie Lampkin (Factory Beta) 13 - 4:15, 4 Rory Mead (NZ - Yamaha) 13 - 4:28, 5 Paul Bolton (Eurotek KTM) 13 - 13:11, 6 Ben Hemingway (Eurotek KTM) 12 - 5:12, 7 Juan Knight (Gas Gas) 12 - 6:32, 8 Richard Ellwood (KTM) 12 - 11:18, 9 Simo Kirrsi (D - Factory BMW) 12 - 11:54, 10 David Myers (CB KTM ) 12 - 12:55, 11 Andy Cripps (Kawasaki) 12 - 13:22, 12 Andreas Lettenbichler (D - Factory BMW) 12 - 13:53, 13 Dan Hemingway (Eurotek KTM) 12 - 14:48, 14 Edward Jones (KTM ) 11 - 7:51, 15 Rudi Poschl (A - 450 Factory BMW) 11 - 9:06, 16 Riaan Van Niekirk (ZA - KTM SA) 11 - 12:00, 17 Mark Jackson (Eurotek KTM) 11 - 12:18, 18 Darryl Curtis (ZA - KTM SA) 11 - 12:20, 19 Dirk Peter (D - KTM) 11 - 13:05, 20 Martin Craven (Eurotek Fat Cat KTM) 11 - 16:56, 21 Marko Siedel (D - KTM) 10 - 6:51, 22 Chris Birch (NZ - KTM SA) 10 - 13:20, 23 Caballero Barrio (E - 450 Beta) 10 - 18:04, 24 Peter Weiss Hanson (DK - ???) 9 - 7:21, 25 Sam Myers (KTM) 9 - 8:28.
EXPERT: 1 Gary Daniels (KTM) 12 laps - 13:07 time penalties, 2 Gary Jenkins (300 KTM) 11 - 5:38, 3 Stephen Dixon (Scorpa T-Ride) 11 - 12:39, 4 Pascal Berlingieri (B - ???) 10 - 6:28, 5 Owain Humphreys (KTM) 10 - 7:00, 6 Gavin Johnston (KTM) 10 - 9:12, 7 Kieran Jones (250 Gas Gas) 10 - 13:15, 8 Julian Harvey (KTM) 10 - 15:44, 9 Tyson Maytom Jones (Husaberg) 9 - 4:08, 10 Kalem Hicks (125 Yamaha) 9 - 7:08, 11 Guy Chandler (KTM) 9 - 7:24, 12 Phil Studley (Poole Yamaha) 9 - 8:39, 13 Wayne Mundell (KTM) 9 - 11:16, 14 Mark Pickard (KTM) 8 - 4:20, 15 Stan Watt (FRGB KTM) 8 - 20:21, 16 Steve Biddle (KTM) 7 - 4:14, 17 'Conrod' Cummings (Gas Gas) 7 - 7:18, 18 Olivier Bertels (B - ???) 7 - 10:40, 19 Karl Langford (300 Gas Gas) 7 - 12:33, 20 Jason Crossland (250 Gas Gas) 6 - 4:18, 21 Justin Carter (KTM) 6 - 4:26, 22 Shaun Turner (250 Suzuki) 5 - 4:11, 23 Daz Williams (???) 5 - 4:24.
KRIEGA HOT LAPS (Expert Qualifying): 1 David Knight 3-min 20.6-secs, 2 Graham Jarvis 3:29.5, 3 Dougie Lampkin 3:29.8, 4 Tom Sagar 3:32.7, 5 Rory Mead 3:36.2, 6 Paul Bolton 3:38.8, 7 Andreas Lettenbichler 3:39.7, 8 Paul Edmondson 3:44.4, 9 Richard Ellwood 3:49.2, 10 Ben Hemingway 3:49.2, 11 Andy Cripps 3:50.9, 12 Dan Hemingway 3:56.7, 13 Sam Myres 3:57.9, 14 Juan Knight 3:58.2, 15 Simo Kirrsi 3:59.8, 16 David Myres 4:05.1, 17 Dirk Peter 4:06.5, 18 Edward Jones 4:11.8, 19 Rudi Poschl 4:13.6, 20 Martin Craven 4:18.6, 21 Darryl Curtis 4:19.3, 22 Marko Siedel 4:19.5, 23 Riaan Van Niekirk 4:24.5, 24 Mark Jackson 4:28.7, 25 Geoff Walker 4:31.3, 26 Peter Weiss Hanson 4:43.4, 27 Caballero Barrio 5:02.1, 28 Klaus Sorenson 5:12.1.
UKXC BOULDER DASH: 1 Dougie Lampkin, 2 Ben Hemingway, 3 Andy Cripps, 4 Rory Mead.
TOUGH ONE XTREME SCRAMBLE
Nantmawr Quarry, nr Oswestry, Shrops
(WOR Events)
DOODSON MOTORSPORT CLUBMAN & VETS RACE
CLUBMAN: 1 Pete Bailey (125 Suzuki) 8 laps - 1:57 time penalties, 2 Gethin Humphreys (KTM ) 8 - 4:22, 3 Danny Thomas (KTM ) 8 - 9:01, 4 Adrian Deeley (250F KTM) 8 - 9:26, 5 Niki Walker (KTM) 8 - 9:31, 6 Nathan Bolton (KTM) 8 - 12:37, 7 Lee Thomas (Honda) 8 - 12:40, 8 Scott Smith (Husqvarna) 7 - 6:28, 9 Arron Smith (Yamaha) 7 - 9:23, 10 David McCarther (KTM) 7 - 9:40, 11 Lee Cornish (KTM) 7 - 10:39, 12 James Reeve (Husqvarna) 7 - 11:25, 13 Hywel Edwards (KTM) 7 - 13:54, 14 Ian McMahn (???) 6 - 3:13, 15 Eifion Davies (KTM) 6 - 13:43, 16 Craig Attwell (Husqvarna) 6 - 17:51, 17 Darren Morgan (Husqvarna) 6 - 18:22, 18 Stephen Tomlin (KTM) 6 - 19:08, 19 Andrew Keyte (Yamaha) 5 - 6:59, 20 Tom Collet (Husqvarna) 5 - 13:25, 21 Jamie Reid (Suzuki) 5 - 15:38, 22 William Hillas (KTM ) 4 - 2:25, 23 Jason Pyper (Husaberg) 4 - 5:43, 24 Dean Johnson (200 KTM) 3 - 2:30, 25 Philip Nicolson (Kawasaki) 3 - 13:39.
VETERAN: 1 Craig Parkes (KTM) 8 laps - 6:05 time penalties, 2 Leslie Winthrop (250F KTM) 8 - 9:38, 3 Gary McCoy (KTM) 8 - 11:52, 4 Klaus Eigl (A - ???) 7 - 8:30, 5 Chris Ball (250F KTM) 6 - 7:16, 6 Mark Crellin (300 Gas Gas) 5 - 8:20, 7 Keith Patstone (KPE KTM) 5 - 20:14, 8 Yayo Reyes (E - KTM) 4 - 2:10.
For full report and pictures read T+MX, February 26
The Hot Laps Hill, a popular addition to the Tough One agenda with riders and spectators alike.