Heaton House Farm fun day and Country Fayre near Leek. Bank Holiday Monday 25th August 2008

Report and pictures Ken Roberts

Terry Craig showboated his way to convincing win at the Masters Trial part of the big charity farm fun day and Country Fayre at Heaton House near Leek in Staffordshire’s Moorlands. Terry always one for the chance to show off used his love of the crowds to show Factory Kev Hipwell and previous winner Rob Bowyer the way to ride the 8 mainly arena sections the crowds came to see.

The big pile of loose rocks that made a proper section one gave Craig the early advantage recording the only clean sheet where dabs were the norm in the tight rolling rock turns. Here only young Atkinson, Ben Miles, Dan Bower and Liam Murray gave Craig any real cause for concern dropping a total of just one or two.

Even though it was all about spectators and arena sections it was one of the natural sections that proved the most difficult taking 2 of winner Craig and 4 apiece of Hipwell, Bower and Atkinson. Only youth rider Oliver Pitt managed 4 cleans but the loose rocks of number 1 had already been his undoing.

Section 8 was the crowd pleaser, a huge tree trunk in the middle of one of the main show fields arranged to be spectacular and on the easy side for both routes.  Mark Atkinson of the top flight needed a steadying prod on his first attempt with most of the rest remaining clean.

Best of the youths on the hard route Tom Stewart overcame bike troubles to record a creditable 21 while young Ian Robinson made best Inter in his ever enthusiastic and crowd pleasing stile on 56.

As usual the easier course was a much closer run thing with 6 riders finishing on less than 10 marks. Andrew Shaw made the most of his holiday Monday by first warming up in the morning on his Cub in the Dead Easy and then taking best performance in the Masters on the easy route in the afternoon on just 2.  Peter Hallam aired his favourite old air cooled Yamaha and conspired with Andrew Onions to end up on 5 apiece. The twin shock trio of Phil Hulme, Mick Heath and Garry Proffitt all made a day of it doing both Dead Easy and Masters Events. Mick Heath pulled out the stops to draw with Phil Hulme on 7 each after Phil had got the drop on Mick in the morning’s dead easy session. Garry suffered a reversal his mornings fortunes in afternoon’s Masters but still managed a decent 6th on 9 just one better than Henry Rosenthal and best youth Alex Tomlinson.

Results:

Harder Sections

Easier Sections:

Pictures: