The national Mintex Trophy Youth trial has again attracted a spectacular entry for Sunday’s battle with the clock, the bleak Swaledale moors and many Scott Trial sections.
For the Class A riders Nathan Stones’s brainchild is a golden opportunity to get to know what the Scott Trial is all about. His idea of an almost identical time and observation trial for youth riders is unique in Europe, if not the world. The rules are the same, the time factor is exactly Scott Trial. The fasted rider sets the benchmark, as Billy Bolt did a couple of years ago.
Unfortunately Bovey Tracy star Billy Green is not on the entry list this year but Truro’s class act Toby Martyn is. The Martyn family are not travelling almost a thousand mile round trip to admire the views.
Championship ranked Class A names are Joe Dawson, all the way from Fife, Ripon’s speedy Sam Johnson and Gloucester’s Tom Culliford. Thomas Coates will be a threat as he lives roughly three miles from Hurst village where the parc ferme marks the start of the twenty mile course. Two laps is on the agenda with thirty sections on each lap. That means a total of sixty sections, only twenty less than the Scott Trial.
Whitwick’s determined Daniel Slack will be a Class B pace setter but Duncan MacColl and Joe Faunthorpe have been there and done it before and know what to expect. Sedgfield’s Scott Aitken has a parent of great experience backing him while Jack Harker was a travelling marshal on the Ilkley Grand National course so has experience of ditches and bike stopping peat bogs.
The battle commences at 10.30 am. One major target are the three tyres donated by Michelin as part of the awards structure. The tyre manufacturer has supported the trial from beginning.
A special note for worried parents. The Richmond club will have many travelling marshals on the trials course. Above all though the competitors must follow the course marking flags and not the rider in front as he or she could be off-course, and lost.