MK Off Road West Midlands Youth Championships

Round 1 2024 ‘The Easter Bunny Trial’

Seymours Arena.

31/3/2024

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Huge thankyou to our sponsors Les Wood at Woodrobes & Nick Godfrey at Central Scanning, and of course on going support from Stu Day at Trials Day, and Danny Butler at TrialTube.

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Also a big thankyou to all at North Berks Mcc and the landowners at Seymour’s Arena. Stuart Robinson & Alicia Robinson as always for all their support and help. Please support North Berks Mcc going forward with their brilliant events.

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Thankyou to our observers! Sarah Cumberland, Bev Cumberland, Nate Robinson, Dawn Harper and anyone else who grabbed a board. Sorry I don’t have your names.

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Team Rich arrived at a pristine and relatively dry Seymours Arena on Friday afternoon. We had a good walk round and started gauging ideas for sections. Fortunately for us, the ladies round we attended only a few weeks before gave us plenty of ideas. We started setting out Saturday Morning at 8am, taking our time in the sunshine. We had the Brookes family over to say hi and help out, and Daisy and Harry kept Kayleigh & Jack company.

Sunday morning and we had a fantastic entry. We lost some who were entered to sickness and bike issues, but 44 started the trial. We also had a couple of welcome day entries. We were blessed to have Alicia Robinson over, helping out young Harry Matthews competing in his first trial. Alicia’s brother Nate then turned up to observe. Having Alicia riding after the trial really inspired the kids, and Nate played football for a while and rode his pedal trials bike over some rocks, which was amazing to see.

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Caz Rich got the day started with the presentation from 2023. Caz was super nervous about this, but I think she did a fantastic job. The trophies were purchased with support from Nick at Central Scanning. We made sure to get the children's names and the year on the trophy, so hopefully they will be something the kids keep and look back on with fond memories.

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All riders received a Cadbury’s egg, observers were offered a bottle of wine to say thankyou too, and the trial got underway at around 10:40am.

Our beginner route, also known as the white route (set out with white flags either side) had 10 riders, 6 electric and four petrol. The electric winner was Molly Hassall, with William West in 2nd, and Maisie Lucas in 3rd. On the petrol's William Hadrill took the win, with Geth Hughes in 2nd and 3rd place going to Callum West. It was great to see 4 of the 7 on the electric route, and 5 out of the 10 overall were girls. The sport on the ladies side is growing all the time!

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The next route up, the yellows, especially on section 1 where I was observing was a little harder than intended. The tyre in the section took marks off every rider, meaning the way over it was to do a pretty tight turn, or come out wide then turn in tight, and lift while still turning. Every rider once they bounced back off it and had straightened up, then got over it with relative ease. This is my fault as I had intended to leave lots of room for the riders to line up, but I’d taped the section to stop the reds crossing their path for their tyre to the left. The scores were relatively high in these classes, but I hope everyone still had a great day. The route had 6 riders on the electric side of things, and 8 on the petrols. Winning electric rider was TRS mounted Rudi Belton, followed by Charlie Gallagher, and rounding off the top 3 was Charlie Langley, last years white route winner. On the petrol's, a fantastic ride and win for Tommy Wakeford, with Joshua Hadrill in 2nd and Barnes Hales in 3rd.

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On the blue/yellow 50/50 route, we name the Novice 50/50, we had a total of 6 riders. The top two in the electric class were Tyler Stephens, having moved up from winning the yellow route in 2023, and Harry Brookes, who had some amazing rides on his 20 inch bike. On the petrol's James Dawson had an easy win and good day out, Thomas Herbert was in 2nd, with Louis Wood just a couple behind in 3rd. Braeden Podesta was just a few behind Louis. All 3 boys relatively new to petrol bikes and doing very well on a tough route.

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Just two riders on the blue route, both in the petrol class and two young ladies. Kasia Pekala – Dayment was 1st with Daisy Brookes in 2nd. Both ladies tacking a tough course and persevering with some tough sections.

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On our red and blue 50/50, we call the intermediate 50/50 class, we had four riders. George Turner took the win with new to our club, Charlie Frost in 2nd place. 3rd place was our Jack Rich, who had big problems with section 2, with 3 fives and a clean! The top 3 separated by just 5 points. Josh Wood was 4th place and had some great rides round the arena.

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Finally, onto the top route. Sam Lefevre took the win by a good margin, just dropping four on section 1. Sam is a superstar and I do believe had to work hard for his score. It was a tough course but I think we managed to cater for everyone. Our Kayleigh Rich was 2nd place, Kayleigh having a good ride but with a few too many slack dabs to challenge Sam. 3rd place went to another Sam, this time the 2023 champion Mr Millmore. Thomas Vinning and Joseph Baker were not too far back from Samuel Millmore come the end.

A fantastic day! A little chilly, but it stayed dry throughout. The sections were a little tough for some but looking at the points dropped, not too far away for all.

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Round 2 of our youth series takes place at Earl Shilton trials club on Sunday June 16th.

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We have round 1 of our Open series championship next though, on Sunday April 21st at Shatterford. This will run similar to the youth series, but we welcome the adults along. Youth/adult will be scored separately. We will have 10 sections rather than 8. The routes will use the same colours, but without 50/50’s. Also, the levels for each route will increase. So the top route will be an adult expert route (in a club trial way) The white route will be more or less the same as the youth white route. Blue will be clubman, and yellow Non Expert (as per a regular AMCA club trial) Any children thinking of attending, you are more than welcome! As always you will be able to have a look round before you sign on. Caz and I will post more details on the facebook page this week.

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Thankyou all so much for coming! We hope to see you again soon.

Andy, Caz, Kayleigh & Jack x