The 12th of March 2022 saw the start of the Midlands OSET and Minichamps Junior Trials Championship get underway at the legendary Dudwood Farm, Near Elton in Derbyshire. The course setters faced a cool but dry day with intermittent sunshine to dry out the open sections, while the routes set out deeper under the tree cover would retain the moist ground conditions following the previous weeks rain. As always the team pulled out all the stops to set out 8 sections of four routes, with the hardest ‘Blue’ route being easily capable of testing adult novice riders at a club trial.
Following the morning briefing presented by Clerk of the Course Tim Hudd, the riders set off from different sections to avoid queuing in the cool breeze. The white route started at Section 1 where Toby Twigg rode his OSET to a confident victory. This winding, grassy section challenged the youngest riders to find grip and avoid treacherous tree roots. Fenella Wood took second place as her riding confidence grows and narrowly beat Alfie Holmes into third place. At Section 2 the riders faced a series of larger rocks to negotiate, but these proved no match for Finlay Samuel mounted on his Beta 80 for the first time, who successfully cleaned both the first two sections on the yellow route alongside OSET mounted James Hunt who achieved the same success in the electric class.
Section 3 took the riders to the top of the course and proved to be a real points taker for everyone bar Harry Hunt who managed to complete all four laps while only dropping the one mark here on his OSET. Section 4 saw the riders tackling the only truly wet section of the day and it really shook up the field with all riders losing marks through the slippery, rooted, rock section with the only riders not to take double digit points being OSET mounted James Hunt on the yellow route and Sam Lefevre on the blue route.
A short run down to the sun blessed Section 5 gave both the riders and minders a chance to dry their wet feet where the descending section tested both brakes and rider confidence. All riders seemed to complete this section happily with 5 riders on the hardest route completing it cleanly.
Section 6 was typical for Dudwood with roots and rocks for all classes to negotiate, the final rooted steps proving too much for everyone in the top two classes with marks being dropped by all the riders, but it showed the passion and tenacity of these young riders as they used their dabs to push their bike across the roots to complete the section.
Section 7 turned out to be the surprise section of the day with the course setters debating its inclusion due to a steep climb to the end gates, but all classes and riders scored incredibly low marks with all the red route riders cleaning it completely.
Section 8 turned the riders back towards the start of the course and involved some tight turns and, for the harder routes, some uphill rocks. It also took a lot of marks from the red route riders who had cleaned the previous section!
Results below.
