Report: World Trial - Great Britain
By John Dickinson on 20th Jul 16
THE British round of the 2016 FIM Trial World Championship, round seven of the eight-round series, was staged for the first time at Parkwood Off Road Centre, Tong, near Bradford, in Yorkshire, and proved to be a memorable round in British World Trial history.
Barcelona's Toni Bou dominated TrialGP – virtually guaranteeing his tenth consecutive World title – James Dabill enjoyed his best ever TrialGP result with a fighting second place on Saturday, Jack Price won Trial2 on the opening day and in doing so tied-up the World Cup class Championship, Dan Peace won Tral2 on Sunday and Iwan Roberts took second and third placings.
Dan's brother Jack won both Trial125 rounds while Billy Green enjoyed third place on day nine, followed by finishing an excellent runner-up on the second day of his first-ever TWC event.
And on top of that Emma Bristow and Becky Cook finished one-two each day in the opening round of the 2016 Women's series...
TRIALGP
TONI Bou was simply in a class of his own on both days of the British TrialGP, the seventh of the eight-round 2016 series, the Repsol Montesa star now, barring a disaster, certain of an incredible tenth consecutive World title.
The sections at Tong, laid out by Graham Jarvis, were a mix of climbs and gullies in the woods, some dry, some very British indeed with slippery mud and ending with three man-made dry rock-slab hazards, very similar to the Nord Vue hazards at the Penrith venue used for the last four years.
Following rain showers on Friday, heavy at times, the going through the twelve sections, lapped three times, was tacky and slippery on Saturday's opening day, especially for the early starters, the Women and Trial125 contenders but soon dried out for the TrialGP contenders.
Whether muddy slots or bone-dry man-made hazards it was all the same to Bou, who would watch his rivals founder and then somehow just level the sections with a near perfect blend of throttle control, timing and balance. A first-lap loss of just one mark, shed in the slippery fifth sub, put him into a huge lead.
He followed that with a comparatively soft lap of three before pulling himself together to finish off with a perfect clean lap.
The big news for the British fans, though, was that James Dabill was on top form and after establishing himself in second place on the opening lap Vertigo factory rider Dibs consolidated that position with a superb effort of just seven on his second lap and 13 last time through.
Importantly, he outpointed World No.2, TRS man Adam Raga on each lap to claim second place, his best-ever finish in TrialGP and 100 per cent deserved.
There was a big jump of almost 20 marks to fourth placed Albert Cabestany on the Sherco, with crowd pleaser Takahisa Fujinami fifth followed by a subdued Jeroni Fajardo on the second factory Vertigo.
The younger generation filled seventh to tenth, with Jaime Busto (Repsol Honda), Franz Kadlec (Gas Gas), Eddie Karlsson (Montesa) and Oriol Noguera (Montesa) battling it out.
Sunday turned out to be a much higher scoring day and was played out in front of a much larger crowd.
The supporters eagerly followed proceedings, many racing through the woods following the top group section-for-section, others happy to stick at one sub and watching all four classes tackle their specific, well-planned routes.
It may have been higher scoring but it was actually a slightly closer contest, as Bou made a slow start with two fives in the first six sections.
After that it was business as usual for Toni as he cut out the mistakes to post a pair of single digit laps, the last one for just three marks making a mockery of the difficult sections.
Adam Raga seemed to be more on the case on Sunday and was keeping Bou in his sights until a costly final lap dropped him off the pace – although the TRS rider still claimed a comfortable second well clear of third-placed Albert Cabestany.
And with Jeroni Fajardo in a close fourth the Sunday results had a very familiar Spanish dominated look.Unfortunately, James Dabill couldn't locate Saturday's awesome form and had to settle for seventh on day two behind Repsol Honda duo Fujigas and young Jaime Busto.
Dibs just didn't look comfortable or confident in the conditions on Sunday which was disappointing after Saturday's strong showing.
