Tuesday June 26, 2012 at 8:34am
Wallsend, fourteen year old trials rider Billy Bolt won the National Mintex Trophy time trial on Sunday at Hurst, near Richmond. The Beta UK rider set a searing pace over two laps of the bleak Richmondshire Moors that had inflicted time penalties on all his rivals.
As well as winning a £100 Michelin rear tyre, he also took the Mintex Trophy and the brand new Luscombe Suzuki Leeds trophy as the best under fifteen years of age. Robin Luscombe stepped up his youth sponsorship by presenting Richmond Motor Club with a Class B age group award. The six footer lived up to his name and just bolted and gapped 2011 pace setter Rob Waite and talented Jack Price by sixteen minutes. Even local ace Jack Stones had no answer but both did state that neither Gas Gas nor Beta in 125 versions would handle anything higher than four gears on the heavy rain soaked moors.
Maybe if it had been a normal dry expanse of moors that pace could have been higher, but not much. Billy’s thirteen and half stone weight and six foot plus height are maybe a bridge to far in machine capabilities. As the day dawned it was bright and breezy and that lifted the moisture off the moors, but the ground was heavy and the stream levels were just above average so Nathan Stones and his dozens of travelling marshals lit the blue touch paper.
No gold coloured cigarette lighters on parade at this show day, just thirty nine eager beavers champing at the bit. Only two sections were axed because of the water levels, Braithwaites Ghyll, just below parc ferme at Hurst but the family Braithwaite had other areas to the east, towards Orgate Falls and that double kicked the action into gear. Tom Minta who headed Haslam by fifteen marks. And the hard luck lines, Skelding’s Sam Johnson seizing his Beta after missing a course flag on lap two.
If the Richmond Motor Club fielded a rowing team in the Olympics they would win hands down. Sunday was a superb team effort from start to finish.