The 2011 ACU Events British Trials Championships reached the half way point with round 4 last weekend. Organised by the Neath MC the venue was for the second time at Ysguthan Farm, near to Ammanford in South Wales.
Heavy rain in the area preceding the event had left the area pretty boggy underfoot and the forecast for heavy rain on trials day was something of an understatement. Practice day was held in fine weather but it did lead the organisers to make changes to the course as the degree of difficulty and time element needed some alteration.
Experts B were away first and Richard Timperley and Guy Kendrew the two main title challengers were early into action. Guy took the Ossa to a class win from Richard Timperley with Kevin Keelan third which matched his result at the West of England. This brings the top two level on 74 points apiece, this is likely to be going to go right down to the season end.
Things were turned upside down in Experts A where it has been a little topsy turvey to date. Ricky Wiggins has so far held the upper hand but today would see him finish in 5th place. He started well enough jointly matching everyone else on lap 1 but 5 maximums on lap 2 saw him post his worst result of what has been a very good season so far. It was however to be a great day for the young Welshman Jake Evans-Luter who would take the win in what would turn out to be a very close run affair with only three marks separating the top four riders. Jack Spencer was the one rider to keep to the form book with another solid third place. This keeps his title aspiration alive and he is now within striking distance of Wiggins and James Fry in the overall standings. James had to settle for fourth on the day and he would be left wondering about a three on Section 2 which stopped his challenge for the class win.
The Championship group were last away with the rain falling even harder and the hardy group of spectators stayed to see them through the log pile. It took plenty of fives although reigning champion James Dabill showed how it should be done with a magnificent clean which was only matched by Alexz Wigg on his first visit. Michael Brown got through for two and Sam Haslam for a very steady three. Section 2 saw a whole bunch of failures with only Alexz getting through for two and Sam and Jonathan Richardson three.
Section 11 saw riders run out of time as conditions were deteriorating further and news was coming through that the event would now run over just two laps not three.
As lap 2 started Dabill was off quickly again cleaning the logs. Sam Haslam had a failure here but he had a smile on his face, he had finished his opening circuit in 2nd place, a podium was a possibility.
Ross Danby plugged away all day to get fourth just one mark ahead of Alexz Wigg.
Full results available for download in PDF format:
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Fileset 2391
