Following on from the recent Helmsley Enduro, the ACU British Timecard Enduro Championship returned to action near Lauder in Scotland over the weekend. The Thirlestane 2 Day Enduro proved to be a very enjoyable but challenging event, with the club setting out a 15-mile lap weaving its way through the local forest on the grounds within Thirlestane Castle using two special tests per lap. With glorious hot sunshine throughout the weekend and with check times slack due to recent dry weather, the Enduro proved to be a very well organised debut BEC event by the hard working Dirtbike Evolution Motorcycle Club. DAY 1
As expected the battle for top honours was always going to be difficult to predict with current series leader Danny McCanney keen to extend his margin over Tom Sagar, Jack Edmondson and Joe Wootton.
After completing 3 laps and 5 special tests of this truly unique event on the Saturday, it was Joe Wootton who was leading the class, just 10 seconds split him from Danny McCanney, but a heavy tumble on the river crossing saw Wootton drop 50 seconds leaving Danny take the overall victory on Day 1. Sagar who himself had taken pole position after the 1
st X-Country test had to settle for the runner up spot again, whilst Jack Edmondson put in another strong performance for the remaining podium place holding off Cornish star Josh Gotts by just 10 seconds and Alex Snow in 5
th a further 1 second adrift. Completing the top 6 was youngster Dan Mundell getting every ounce of horsepower out of his smaller capacity 125c mount.
Ex-multi World Enduro champion Paul Edmondson topped off a brilliant days riding by taking the Expert class win narrowly beating the impressive Luke Flack by a single second. Mr consistent Max Ditchfield took 3
rd only 1 second down on Flack, while Aaron Gordon, Joel Gowan and Harry Hillier-Rees finished a very respectable 4
th, 5
th & 6
th in this hotly contested class. Unluckiest rider of the day must have been Ben Murphy forced to retire late on in the day due to an ankle injury whilst leading.
In the biggest class of the day, youngster Harry Houghton took a well-deserved Clubman overall win from Lewis Ranger. Third saw the ever-improving Luke Thomas put in a strong performance just holding off Stuart Mack in 4
th by 6 seconds.
The ladies class saw another close battle between Nieve Holmes and Rosie Rowett. After battling it out over 3 laps and 6 special tests Rowett had to accept the runner-up spot as Holmes took the premier award by a narrow margin of 4 seconds.
Andrew Reeves took a well-deserved win the ultra-competitive Over 40’s class, holding off Manx rider Russell Milward in 2
nd. Series leader Andrew Edwards was unable to continue his 100% unbeaten run but still bagged some good points in 3
rd just a few hundredths of a second down on Millward.
The Over 50’s saw Gary McCoy take an impressive win pipping Paul “Elvis” Davies by 43 seconds. Elvis’s battle with a gorse bush on test 2 surely didn’t help his cause! The battle for runner-up was a lot tighter though with Elvis beating Jason Davies by just 10 seconds.
DAY 2
Slight rain overnight and a shortened day with 1 lap less wasn’t going to slow the battle between Danny McCanney and Tom Sagar, but after 5 laps and 10 special tests it was McCanney who took a well-deserved victory beating off Sagar by 15 seconds come the end of play. Fighting back after his heavy tumble on day 1 saw Joe Wootton take 3
rd a further 10 seconds behind Sagar, Jay Thomas took a fine 4
th also taking the E1/4 class win from Jack Edmondson just 2 seconds down. Alex Snow rounded off the top 6 just 6 seconds behind little Ed. A heavy fall on test 8 saw Dan Mundell’s chances for a high placing slip.
Experts class Luke Flack went one better and took the class win with a 5 second margin over Paul Edmondson. Max Ditchfield again was 3
rd, while Richard Tucker improved on his day 1 performance lifting himself to 4
th place just one hundredths of a second behind Ditchfield, another good day saw Joel Gowan take 5
th and Ricky Wiggins in 6
th.
It was Lewis Ranger’s turn to take the win in the Clubman; Stuart Mack improved on his day 1 3
rd place to take the runner up, while Harry Houghton had to settle for 3
rd.
Rosie Rowett close battle with Nieve Holmes in the Ladies class continued, this time Rowett taking victory by 11 seconds.
Russell Millward was awarded his 1
st class win in the Over 40’s, Andrew Reeves took the runner up spot with Andrew Edwards in 3
rd.
Gary McCoy finished off with another solid win in the Over 50’s ahead of Paul Elvis Davies who in turn headed off Jason Rees for the final place on the podium. Les Pole cleaned up both days in the sportsman class.
All in all, it was a superb event put on by the Dirtbike Evolution club, a great addition to the BEC series! The next round of this series is organised by Southern MCC & will be in the Isle of Man over the weekend of 7th/8th July. Entries are now available.
For further information on the event checkout the clubs website –
http://southernmcc.com
Photos: Gemma James Photography