Sport7 shakes up world trials series
By Sean Lawless on 12th Apr 17
The FIM World Trials Championship is undergoing the biggest shake-up in its 42-year history this season with new promoter Sport7 promising to revamp the format with a series of exciting changes.
Renamed TrialGP, the championship – which kicks off in Spain on May 13/14 – has operated without a promoter for many years. Now Sport7, headed by Jake Miller, intends to bring TrialGP into line with the polished standards set by other high-profile motorsports.
Miller, a long-time fan of the sport and Dougie Lampkin's manager for almost 20 years, will use his wealth of knowledge and experience to steer the series in a new direction.
"After months of planning it is all starting to come together and feels quite real now,” he said. "We will have a really strong team on the ground in Spain who have a great wealth of expertise and experience and who will be responsible for delivering the new-look series.
"It is certainly an exciting challenge and one that we are 100 per cent focused on and looking forward to.”
The premier TrialGP class is now only open to the previous season's top 10 point scorers along with a handful of riders selected by Sport7 and the FIM who are felt to have the ability – or potential – to tackle the high-level sections. There will be a total of 18 permanent TrialGP riders on bikes over 250cc.
Trial2, restricted to 250cc, has dropped its World Cup status and instead becomes a full FIM world championship contested over all eight rounds. Trial125 will be contested over the first five rounds with the shortened format already prompting a four-fold increase in entries.
A new two-tier format for female riders has also been introduced. The TrialGP Women class will be contested by the world's top 20 with Trial2 Women, a new FIM World Cup, created to cater for the increasing number of female riders taking part in the series.
Both of the women's classes will kick off in July with the three-round series starting at the TrialGP USA which marks the first time the female championship has ventured outside Europe.
Rather than stick with the established method of deciding start order on ranking with the highest-placed riders getting the advantage of going last, from 2017 starting position will be determined by a timed qualification process.
Held the day before the main competition, ties on observation will be decided on time.
A fixed timetable has also been introduced to ensure parity across the entire championship and make it easier for fans to follow the action and, for the first time, live section-by-section results will be available both at events and via a new mobile app and webpage.
"While we're confident that TrialGP Spain will be a great success and will be a solid start to the new series,” added Miller, "we're also fully aware that lessons will be learned over the first weekend and we will make the required adjustments ready for the following events.
"Despite my many years of being involved in the championship and the events having become quite routine, even I have a high level of anticipation heading to Camprodon as seeing will definitely be believing!”
For more details go to www.trialgp.com
