Wallace Cup is now cancelled

And following on from the cancellation of the opening National trial of the year, the Vic Brittain (January 27) comes the bad news that  this Sunday's  (February 17) Wallace Cup Trial will not now take place.

 

This popular North Berks MCC National event was to have been the opening round of the 10 event 2013 ACU S3-Parts Clubman Trials Championship.

 

The cancellation is simply because of the weather conditions the ground has  become water-logged which was causing concern to many of the land owners. 

 

The car park at the start area also became flooded. and the committee had to make a hard decision to cancel the trial in the interest of future use of the land.

 

This decision was not taken lightly as Stu Robinson and the North Berks gang had worked long and hard in order to stage the Wallace Cup, an event of which they are quite rightly proud.

 

Stu and John Lightfoot met with landowners on Monday night this week to see if there was any way to proceed with the event but in the end it was decided that there was simply no option.

 

When asked if there was any chance of the event being re-scheduled the answer was that it was not very likely.

 

Firstly the calendar is already very crowded and also because the relatively small number of active North Berks members are already committed to a pretty packed calendar this year.

 

Meanwhile an overnight blizzard knocked the old established Yorkshire centre event, The Timperley Cup Trial, off the motorcycle sport weekend on Sunday. 

 

Bradford club officials Kath and Ron Eddings left home late on Saturday afternoon intent on spending the night at remote Yarnbury, high above Grassington to test out the central heating of their new motorhome and, be ready to accept entries and 

issue riding numbers to competitors. 

 

At 6am a blizzard was blowing and conditions were a total white out. 

 

By dawn it was obvious that the event would not run. The ground was frozen and the terrain dangerous. 

 

Had a competitor or official fallen it would have been impossible to locate them and the 20 observers would have surely suffered hypothermia within minutes. 

 

The resident Scottish gamekeeper on hand thought any chance of running the trial would have been foolhardy. 

 

At least it was a baptism of fire for Clitheroe lady secretary Julie Hodson. Julie had managed to get as far as Grassington market place only to learn that the trial was cancelled.

 

Here's hoping for better luck this weekend.