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2005 Championship ENDURO

Round 10  - ELRAT MCC - Griffin Forest Aberfeldy

Sponsored by Robert W Brownlie Motor Engineers

9th October 2005

Results for Abereldy 05 - click here

With the loss of Shiplaw earlier in the year ELRAT found a new forest at Aberfeldy courtesy of Tilhill Forestry. As in all   new venues the club worked very hard to put in a decent length of track and waited to see how it would hold up on the day.

With over 1/2 an inch of rain on the Friday and constant rain during the event it was a testing track but with very few retirals the club see to have got it right. The last event of the season at Bon Accord was cancelled and so the final event ended up with several championships still to be won so a big special test which would allow riders a final blast was designed with most of the bigger boulders marked. A test which allow riders to get up some speed (as long as you avoided the deep ruts which developed at the 2nd corner !).

The course started down a heather ride then a damp river bank and onto a fire road. The sportsmen were cut out at two points on the track where the course was very technical to allow them a chance to finish. The rest of the riders had a couple of big hills which cut up in places to remind riders of what events in the 90s were like. The rain stayed on all day but the riders seemed happy and most enjoyed the course. The first time some of the Sportsmen had been in a wet event.

In the Expert class Crawford Carrick Anderson started with a 6 point lead and went on to win the event and the Championship. Murray Thomson and Derek Little were only separated by one point at the start and with Derek finishing in second place it was enough to give him runner up in the Championship. Murray Thomson finished in 3rd ahead of Richard Hay who enjoyed the tough going on the track.

Ian Patterson made a brilliant recovery from his high speed DNF at Selkirk to win the Over 40 class just beating Sean Wooley with Andrew Flockhart in 3rd. Only 4 seconds separting the 3 riders in a very close finish to the season. Sean is the new Over 40 Champion and was very happy after a hard season battling it out. Jim Lauder had a big crash on lap 1 and retired . Still one of the most competitive classes with new young guns ( only 40 ) ready to challenge again each year.

Douglas Page finally won the Clubman class after a quick check of the provisional results.  It was not enough to stop Alan Lauder from taking the Championship with 3rd place behind a very quick Craig Jagla. Duncan McCormick was 4th on his big KTM with Gavin Douglas in 5th after the long trip from Yorkshire. Dave Ramsay had a slow speed fall but landed on a stump and bashed his side. OK now after a quick trip to Perth Infirmary for a check up.

David Fergus lead the Sportsman home followed by Alastair Crocket and Murray Whitaker. Stuart Clachan has been moving up the class and finished 4th ahead of the younger Scotland Garry who upheld family honour in 5th. The Sportsmen were very relieved to hear the swamp beside the fence had been cut out after a few pleas to the Clerk of the Course.

As a final race of the season it gave each rider a lastchance to show what they could do and we now have some new Champions.

2005 has been one of the best seasons with a large number of races over the whole country. All the clubs have put in a tremendous effort all year and hopefully this will help us put on a great BEC round at Lossiemouth in April. All helpers will be welcome.

A big thank you to Atholl and Caroline for all the work they put in to find us a new forest and for all the weekends they spent walking round finding a course. On the day several riders passed on their thanks to all the marshalls in particular Duncan Braid - who seemed to find new routes past all the bogs.

Best of luck for 2006 - hopefully it will be as big a season

Click to enlarge photos.

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