A bracing wind from the sea greeted 33 riders who ventured to the clubs most easterly venue for one of the two charity trials planned for December. The area at Wrights Farm was part of the old scramblers course and is made up mainly of scrubland and sand dunes, course plotters were out on Thursday, the day of the floods and marked out 8 sections to be ridden 5 times. Soft sand seemed to favour the bigger bikes with expert riders Andy Webbe and Mat Mison returning clean sheets in the Pre-Unit class. Mick Ash on the James mirrored their achievements and the rest of expert class all finished on under 5 marks, which on the face of it looked like it was set a little on the easy side, but concentration was the order of the day especially on section 1, a sandy exit to a cambered climb kept observer Brenda McGregor busier than most. In fact, none of the intermediate riders managed to keep their feet up on Brenda's section, the best effort recorded by Mick James on the big pre unit BSA, who had the odd dab. He went on to take the class win on an impressive 4 marks lost.
Clubman class saw Pete Kitching on sparkling form to ride his route clean, a result copied by Martin Green on the BVS, his first time out after recovering from an ankle injury, again they were the only two riders not to drop any marks on the day. Errol Gowshall rode his new Rigid AJS for the first time and enjoyed a class win over Rob Brookes on his Springer Ariel. With the event being none championship status it was good to see three of our regular clubman contenders, messers Clark, Turner and Clibbery move up to the intermediate route for the day.
Poachers host the next charity trial at Benniworth Haven on the 27th December, refreshments will again be available at the start and we wish all our riders a very Happy Christmas, Thank you for your support in 2013.MG