Shaun's Wild with delight
By TMX Archives on 15th Nov 06
TWENTY-three-year-old Preston electrician Shaun Morris won the annual Northern Experts trial at Wildboarclough, Derbyshire, for the third time on Saturday beating Scarborough teenager, also an electrician, Michael Brown, and Crook graduate Michael Phillipson.
Sparks certainly flew at the 59th Northern Experts trial with five top Gas Gas exponents locking horns with a rampant trio of Repsol Beta national stars on the testing, and very traditional, Manchester 17 club's course.
Ken Roberts and his experienced course plotters Harvey Lloyd, Ken Eyre, Rupert Ellison, Scott Ellis, Scott Rowland, Mike Roberts and Mark Reynolds played a major role in staging what was without a doubt one of the best National trials this year. The sections were hard, tricky, greasy, and sometime unpredictable but considering the top 20 scores were under 70, and Shaun did the business on a mere eight marks, and delivered the result that John Shirt was dreaming of as he pedalled his own Gasser home to 17th place. Not bad for an old-timer!
The format was more or less as last year, into the darkness of Clough House, but with two soggy starters on the windswept, nay gales-swept moors above the wooded ravine. The top eight ran clean on the opening 20 section lap but it did catch Liam Walker on lap one. Both sections did dig down on lap two with Craig Robinson and Andy Cripps both losing drive. John Sunter had a bad start to the day when he slid back off the tree roots at the first sections and Dan Thorpe had to stab at the woodwork on lap two to persuade the Gas Gas up the final yards.
Aussie Grant Morris found a hidden rock in the beck bottom and took a quick prod to regain control. Mika Vesterinen lost marks on four, where Phil Granby marked the scores, along with Sunter when the machine slid on the soft mud but that was nothing compared with what came at section five where Russ Line looked over the top of his glasses as rider after rider struggled to surmount a two-foot diameter fallen tree which straddled the edge of the river bank, the contents of said river gurgled downstream, six feet below. This was where the tricky bit came in, up stream, up left hand river bank, across narrow part of waterworks, then up and over the tree. Not likely. Only six mastered the woodwork on lap one, when it was easy. Morris, Brown, Phillipson, Thorpe, Ross Danby – on the 125 GG – and Liam Walker. Austermuhle, Dan Farrer, Vesterinen, Sunter, George Morten and Craig Robinson all lost marks.
59th NORTHERN EXPERTS TRIAL
Wildboarclough (Manchester 17 MCC)
Northern Experts: Shaun Morris (Gas Gas) 8 marks lost, Michael Brown (Beta) 10, Michael Phillipson (Beta) 11, Dan Thorpe (Gas Gas) 14, Mika Vesterinen (Gas Gas) 16, Richard Timperley (Gas Gas) 26, Ross Danby (Gas Gas) 28, Ian Austermuhle (Beta) 29, John Sunter (Montesa) 32, Craig Robinson (Gas Gas) 33 (28x0), George Morton (Beta) 33 (27x0), Liam Walker (Gas Gas) 36 (27x0), Dan Farrer (Gas Gas) 36 (23x0), Matthew Jones, (Sherco) 37, John Shirt (Gas Gas) 44.
CLUBMAN ROUTE
Expert: Mark Reynolds (Gas Gas) 6.
Inter: Gavin Black (Gas Gas) 13, Dave Wardell (Sherco) 31, Ben Miles (Beta) 52.
Novice: Lewis Black (Gas Gas) 17, Joe Nicholas (Beta) 22, Ben Powell (Beta) 43.
Over 40: Kevin Hipwell (Gas Gas) 9, John Hulme (Gas Gas) 10, Mike Edwards (Gas Gas) 10.
For full report, results and pictures see T+MX News, Friday, November 17, 2006