The Irish Enduro Championship season started on Easter Sunday April the 4th and after the disappointment of the opening round being cancelled that had been scheduled for the 14th of March, the organizers had a fright a week before the event when a late snow fluffy threatened another cancellation after the Wicklow Mountains were cast back into a scene from a winter wonderland that hit the area in early January. Fortunately, this time the snow didn’t hang around long and even with heavy rain on the Friday and Saturday the race still went ahead as planned to the delight of the 87 strong entry.
The riders and organizers were rewarded with mild and sunny spring weather on race day for the course that had been divided into 3 checks per lap starting just outside Ashford in County Wicklow.
The Special test was within sight of the start area and was not timed on the first lap in order to allow the riders to check out where they would need to go fast and where they would need to go steady, and what a good job it was as surprises lay around every corner. The first of these was a narrow gap through 2 trees at the end of a fast track which even the smallest pair of Renthal’s wouldn’t have fitted through without some wiggling. The test then took on some super fast straight single track with little or no margin for error and some twisty sections through forestry that was littered with roots and off cambers. The last section was a super fast single track that rose up a hill to the end set of timing lights and a run off area, which most riders had to take full advantage off!
The rest of the lap was a great mixed bag of varying terrain, with some moorland, some wet muddy hardwood-forest trails and some super tough rocky paths to follow, all of which were set to a schedule that had to make the riders keep pushing if they didn’t want to drop minutes.
The Irish Championship Experts class rarely sees entries into double figures, but this year there have been some promotions, some comebacks and some more imports from overseas and 13 riders filled the top group at this first race. Paul Mcloughlin (KTM) was edged into third place on the day after a small mistake in the final test saw him loose 2nd spot to Andrea Bassi, a young Italian student and TM pilot who is enjoying his first outing on the Irish enduro scene, by 0.6 of a second. Andrew Reeves (VMX KTM) took the 1st place by being 39 seconds quicker than them over the 3 tests. A special mention goes to Ray Tolan for making that classic Enduro error of checking in early and not going into the rest of the checks at the correct time – back to Enduro school for you Ray (Rule book on it’s way in the post!).
In the Seniors class Paul McCarty took the win after pulling a 17 second advantage over Liam O’Brien. Liam’s advantage over third place wasn’t as generous as he was a mere 3.8 seconds in front of Aaron Ross. Pre race podium hopefuls included Stewart Dicker, who had a ‘bad day’, Danny Balmforth, who lost a minute and Dave McNulty who DNF’d.
In the Clubman class Richard Leonard made his intentions for 2010 clear by winning on his first ride in this category, with his 21 second advantage over Munster’s finest Digger driver, Willy Gammell. 3rd spot in the clubman class was Mark Bannon.
The Sportsman class is always well populated and of the 30 riders that started 25 finished – which is a good sign of a well balanced course that is passable by the majority of the entry. Gary Yeates grabbed the win from William Dalton who was 2nd and Seamus O’Sullivan who was third. Commiseration’s to new TORC official Richard ‘I missed the Via check’ Murphy for setting the 2nd best test times on the day and being excluded because he, well, missed the via check…
At the end the talk was of a decent, challenging enduro that the weather had been kind to and now attention turns to the next round, at an all new venue on the 25th of April the White Mountain Enduro, let’s hope it’s only a name and there is no more spring snow on the way.
Big thanks to the TORC club and all the organizers.
No photos from this event as Robbie Lynn selfishly decided to get back into riding bikes instead of taking photos!
Report by Reevesy for www.enduro.ie