Trials Torque: Brilliant Tong does us proud
By John Dickinson on 20th Jul 16
THE first FIM World Championship Trial to be staged in Yorkshire since 1993 turned out to be quite a weekend.
There was just so much going on, so many classes to follow and so many British riders really making the most of their big chance that you wanted to be everywhere at once.
After four years at Nord Vue, Penrith, the change to Tong, near Bradford, was a breath of fresh air.
Graham Jarvis did a great job with the sections, especially for daring to introduce some mud and dirty water to complement his trademark "Stonehenge” style man-made hazards.
If the event returns to Tong I would encourage Graham to include more mud and roots and wet stuff and make it even more British!
Before I get too carried away it wasn't perfect, mainly for the fact that the Women's Championship trials were slashed from three laps to just two which, given that all the other classes went ahead as planned, quite rightly didn't go down well, for reasons so obvious I don't need to go into detail.
But as far as the fans go I don't think anyone was short changed with TrialGP, Tral2 and Trial125 backed-up by the opening Ladies round, which was really well-supported by the girls who travelled from as far away as Australia, New Zealand and the USA.
And a whole gang of enthusiastic British girls, supporting our World No.1 and No.2 Emma and Becky, gave the Women's event a real buzz.
James Dabill, our only contender in TrialGP, turned in the ride of his life on Saturday which unfortunately he was not able to repeat on Sunday when a much larger crowd turned-out.
Jack Price, Dan and Jack Peace, Iwan Roberts, Billy Green, Jack Spencer, Katy Sunter, Donna Fox and a whole bunch more gave us all plenty to shout about on the day.
There was even the novelty of electric bikes, included in the World Championship for the very first time.
Chris Pearson, Bastien Hieyte and Matthew Alpe gave us all a taste of what, regardless of what you may think of them, will inevitably be at least a part of the future, with their performances on the rapidly developing Electric Motion machines.
They were surprisingly good...
When first announced, many people were sceptical of the venue, myself included, but John Kerwin, Graham Jarvis and team proved not only that it was a good move, but that there is plenty of scope for the future...
