Trial report and results for RTC Inc trial 23/24 July 2011

[David Lahey]

Trial report and results for RTC Inc trial 23/24 July 2011 at Seeonee Park

This was another of the trials where there is a great campout on the Saturday night and riders can do their laps either Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning or both. Most riders rode one or two of their five laps on Saturday and the rest on Sunday while many of the Mackay-based riders did almost all their laps on Saturday so they could have an early start to the drive home on Sunday. A few riders arrived on Sunday morning. It seems to be a popular and attractive arrangement with riders because there were 36 riders in total which is quite good numbers for an RTC Inc event.

The riders’ briefing on Saturday included a special item that we had to be careful with – there was a busload of young women having a hen’s party at the same time as our riding and located quite close to the sections. It was a Laser Skirmish party and we were told that as long as we stayed West of the road to the phone tower we would be out of their combat zone. As far as I know none of the riders were grilled by laser beams so that was all good and when the combatants emerged from the bush and back to the camping area in their greens and camo gear they looked fine too but maybe needing a bit of a rest.

Despite there being no rain for a few months now, Limestone creek was still flowing through Seeonee Park and the vegetation was still looking very happy. A mammoth vegetation control effort by the section clearers and setters provided us with a total of eight very enjoyable sections in the dry creekline to the West of the track that climbs up to the phone tower. It has been quite a while since we had ridden that part of that creekline. The first three sections at the bottom end were close together and were shared by all grades so it was a very social area. The terrain where the top four sections were set becomes increasingly steep both in the gradient of the watercourse and the slopes on each side, so much so that the last section (number eight) was A and B grade only.

The quality of the sections was very high with much thought obviously going into making them interesting, challenging, fun and with most being set for all grades it was a treat to be able to watch so many other riders. I especially liked the way they were quite open, providing line options within each grade. The sections were also “big” in terms of length and the size of obstacles and climbs and descents, which for my class (Twinshock) means that the bigger, heavier bikes are not disadvantaged as can happen when sections are set with very tight lines.

Three of the riders had just got back from the Laia Sanz women’s coaching weekend in Sydney and the resulting improvement in their confidence levels was fantastic to see. Nicole Casey and Sarah Chivers rode C Grade for the first time from Novice while Jessica Chivers continued in C Grade and was only just pipped for first place by Darryl Easterman. There was quite a bit of interest in Sarah’s orange two-stroke 125 Scorpa, being the first “Sherco” Scorpa that most people had seen in the flesh.

One of the CQ TV stations (Channel 7) aired a feature during the following week as part of their evening news broadcast using rider interviews and action footage taken during the Sunday morning riding.

There was also good pre-event publicity from a Rockhampton newspaper article about the event which included two photos - a large colour photo of Angela Sophios riding through deep water earlier in the year and a smaller photo of Don Jones riding. Thankyou Drew Wickerson for that publicity and also for producing the beautiful colour posters that went up in many local businesses leading up to the event. Drew also managed to get a story about the trial with colour photo in the Gladstone Observer during the week following the event.

Angela McCarthy supplied a set of professionally-made directional signs for managing car traffic and parking, and for riders navigating to the sections. Very impressive – thankyou Angela.

The campout went very nicely with lots of people huddled around a large brazier while others watched a DVD of the world indoor trials series. It was a cold night with many people delaying getting out of their warm beds until there was abundant sunlight.

I don’t have any photos from this trial yet but if anyone has some they want to share, please post them on the trials.com.au “event news” forum which is where I will be posting this report, and on the RTC Inc Facebook page. I see Timothy Evans has posted some photos there already. Our Facebook page is called “Rocky Trials Club Inc”. Thankyou Tharyn Thomas for setting up our Facebook page



Junior/Novice
Timothy Evans 5 (KT250), Dylan Allan 16, Riley Hunt 23 (TY175), Samantha Sophios 32

C Grade
Darryl Easterman 10 (TY175), Jessica Chivers 14, Kevin Havik 22, Tim Stone 24, Kane Havik 27, Glenn Pincham 28, Hunter Pincham 34, Mick Casey 35, Sarah Chivers 49, Brodie Matheson 61, Brian Crozier 61, Nicole Casey 64, Brent Chivers 8 NC (TLR200)

Twinshock B Grade
David Lahey 10 (TY), Ken Cutmore 22 (TLR200), Mark Casswell 44 (SWM TL320), Drew Wickerson 49 (TLR250), David Erba 52 (TLR)

B Grade
Justin Lynham 14, Peter Casey 24, Shayne Freebody 37, Paul Lynham 38, Todd Matheson 46, Dan McLean 46, Andrew Lynham 53, Travis Boyle 66 , Angela Sophios NC

A Grade
Don Jones 18, Neil McLucas 37, David Q 39, Barry Caird 53, Alex Jones 56, John Sophios 78


The next RTC Inc trial is planned for Waterson’s property (Chamberlain Road, Burua) on Sunday 21 August


David Lahey 31 July 2011