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South West Enduro Champs 2011 – Rnd1 Halvanna
Hells Bells as Dustow
battles with Life
Report Courtesy Mike Roose. Photos by
John Baker & Adrian Harris.
'Welcome to Hell' was the 2 metre square poster that greeted competitors
as they entered the infamous Halvanna Forest plantation for the first
round of the 2011 South West Enduro Championship, sponsored by Thor
motorcycles and run by Camel Vale MCC.
Chris Dustow shown above
battled for 3 tough hours to finally outpace Nick Life seen below
splashing through one of the many hundred boggy bits!
This very tough 3 hour hare and hounds has a well earned reputation of
being very tough indeed. “At least they can’t say they were not warned”
smiled Mike Roose as he then informed me “I won’t say its going to be
tough but, although they will want to kill me later. I shall be able to
look at them and grin, because I know they won’t have the energy to!”
It was fast going at the
start, but...
Be in no doubt, this isn’t a fast glamorous event. It requires guts and
determination to finish – and a lot of hard earned skill to ride it well
...the riders soon entered
the dark deep forest.
This event held at the Halvanna Plantation nr Bolventor. Has been
Missing from the calendar since 2008 but Camel Vale MCC took the brave
decision to return to what’s known locally as Hell’vanna because of the
7 mile lap of black peat which disappears to expose tree roots, lumps of
granite and deep holes.
And it did get deep. - As
Tim Edwards from Bodmin who lead
convincingly from the start soon found out.
Throughout January in the weeks before the event there had been
torrential rain but fortunately on this weekend it remained dry and as a
concession to the riders the club had also decided to by-pass the worst
of the evil bogs!!
Even Championship Class
rider Gavin Hunt became unstuck
more than once on this gnarly piece of going.
It was a glorious sunny day outside, but for some reason this forest
seemed to hold a frost pocket. However although cold things would soon
hot up, as amongst the championship class was Chris Dustow from Par who
has held the title for the last 2 years, was up against six times winner
Jason Fraser from Stithians making a welcomed return and also Nick Life
from Totnes.
Eeny meeny miny mo, and into
the mud we shall go.
Left track or right - your choice!
From the start Fraser (5) took the lead on his Husaberg but by the end
of the lap it was KTM mounted Dustow (1) from Life (4) on his Suzuki who
then continued to swap places until the 2 hour mark when Dustow managed
to pull ahead of Life and finish with a 3 minute lead, both on 9 laps.
Making his first appearance in the championship class Shaun Martin (8)
finished fourth on 7 while Fraser held 3rd on 8 laps.
Of course it wasn't all mud,
- there was a wonderful change for the riders
as they entered the freshly sharpened and deadly thinings - ready
to spike their wheels or body if unlucky - Nice eh!
In the Experts Ian Martin (25) from Redruth on his Gasgas held the lead
all day and finished on 7 laps and three minutes in front of KTM mounted
Chris Honeywill (17) from Newton Abbott with Gary McCoy (16) on his KTM
a further 3 minutes behind in 3rd and Colin Eddy (23) on his Gasgas
fourth.
Finally some speed, here
photographer John Baker managed to
capture Expert winner Ian Martin has he gassed his machine
through a part sloppy and half frozen berm.
New for this year was the Expert over 35 class, Justin Gibb (42) held
the lead early on but despite having to come from back in the pack
Charlie Richards (38) from Chard ran out the eventual winner with Chris Doidge (29) 2nd and Jon Hinckley (28) 3rd, all on 7 laps.
Oh oh, which way to go!!! This guy thought he saw
a better route
- and nearly ran us over to boot!
Clear winner in E1 was Gareth Marshall (50) on 7 laps with Ben Floyd
(47) 2nd on 6 laps and closely followed by Ollie Hicks (44). Making it a
family affair the winner in E2 was Charlie Richard’s son Daniel (60)
making his first appearance and finished on 7 laps with Darrel Clemo
(62) and Daniel Hutchings (64) on 6 laps. Things were much closer in E3
with Martin Froggatt (72) on 6 laps but only two minutes ahead of Scott
Medlyn (70) and Jonathan Hewitt (66) 3rd on 5 laps.
...but not all alternative routes through the
woods paid off!
In the Clubman over 40 class Tim Edwards (91) from Bodmin lead
convincingly from the start completing 6 laps and finishing 11 minutes
in front of Hannes Tanzer (79) also from Bodmin, in third was Mark Sweet
(86) from Saltash who only just missed out on an extra lap by seconds
and finished on 5 with Colin George (77) in fourth.
It was good to see pensioner Dave Muller back in
action after many
years away from the sport. Dave rode steady to a good finish.
The first three in the sportsman class all finished on 4 laps, Luke
Anstice (98) 1st with Toby Smith (97) 2nd and Stuart Cooper (100) 3rd.
Not everyone chose to go in a forward direction...
here Paul Truscott
tried an unsuccessful alternative line through a barbed wire fence!
Memorable moment: One young lad who had entered this as his very first
event crawled past me in one of the horrendously difficult wood sections
howling “this is the worst day of my life”. Well it certainly made my
day.
Graham Richards up on the pegs through a bit of
'deep stuff'.
Round two of the 2011 South West Enduro Championship will be the Brass
Monkeys Enduro on March 13th which will be staged by the Xmoor club.
Don’t Miss it !
Fantastic Photo CD Available of this event: John
Baker - who took many of the photos shown here, - has prepared a superb
CD of all his photos from this event. This is now available at a gift of
a price. For a preview and full details, please take a look at his
full gallery HERE
Full Results
HERE
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