Diss MCC ran the Dave Barkshire 2-man Enduro at Rushford Farm on Sunday. The club express their sincere thanks to the Saker Estates for allowing us to use this fantastic area of land with several woods and stubble fields providing a great and varied 3.6-mile lap.
The organising team had worked extremely hard in the hot and humid weeks leading up to the event and the course was in great shape for the 72 pairs of riders.
The morning was dry and dusty with the very soft loamy soil proving particularly loose in the woods. As expected, the very strong number 12 pair, Luke Parker and Ben Cole were out front and lost the least time of any championship or expert rider - despite losing a minute at the end of their very first session. Only the teams of Parker and Cole, Craig and Jamie Roper and Adam James and Mathew Harries delivered 16 laps in the morning.
The afternoon proved to be a very different affair - thunder clouds which had been building in the morning finally burst and it poured. By 1:00pm there had been a huge amount of rain and everywhere was standing with water. Reluctantly riders made their way to the start line for their afternoon session as the rain continued to pour down. With all that rain riders were faced with a totally different event. The course quickly became rutted and slushy and the rain kept falling. It meant many riders struggled - some of the pits had to be cut out and many riders completed half the laps they'd managed in the morning.
The special test was the first lap of the afternoon session and Parker showed his firm with a 7 minute 55 lap followed by Adam James on 8 minutes 29 and the fast charging Jake Roper on his 125 KTM third fastest with 8 minutes 37.
However, Parker and Cole kept flying adding another 14 laps to their score Craig and Jamie Roper and James and Harries the only 2 teams to clock up 13 laps in the much tougher afternoon.
The final result saw Parker and Cole 3.5 laps clear of Craig and Jamie Roper with Ross Taylor and Dan Willis in third in the championship class. A great result from Taylor and Willis who were key members of the many working parties who had set up the course.
James and Harries took expert honours followed by Joe Hall and Julian Harvey with Joe Phillips and Josh Sturman taking third.
Clubman victory went to Chris Ballard and Lewis Holmes with Diss Clubman Tom Morris and Jason Naruszewicz in second with Carl Honeywood and Christian Drane taking third.
This is Diss MCC's first event since covid-19 restrictions and significant additional measures were put in place to meet the additional safety requirements for riders and officials. Plus, a huge amount of work was put in by the team to set out the event on new land. Despite the challenging weather the event ran perfectly, and riders were very positive about this great new venue and many thanks have been expressed both to the organising team and the landowners.
Report by Richard Snowden
Photos by Anthony Ridge