Bill Peters Trial... Feb 15th 2009.

Stroud Valley Motor Club ran the 3rd round of the Western Centre trials championship, The Bill Peters Trial on Sunday 15th February... After a lot of doubt the trial would not run due to the snow.
There were an excellent number of entries due to lots of local trials being cancelled. In total there were 75 entries with people travelling as far as Milton Keynes and Cornwall. Ricky Wiggins made his journey from Yeovil worthwhile by taking the win from Western Centre champion Simon Welch. Ricky gained an early advantage when Simon suffered a 5 on the hill climb of section 3 on his first lap. The runner up in last year’s centre championship, Henry Bendall, had to settle for 5th place behind out of centre riders John Cowley and Michael James.
Just out of schoolboys Leo Rochfort had a good ride on his new 270 Beta finishing on 67 marks. On the 50/50 route Ben Toms proved the 4 stroke Sherco performance in the mud, taking the narrow victory from Joel Mitson.
Tim Wheeler took the win for the alternative route by only losing 21 marks. Heath Brindley, AKA R2W, made a rare appearance putting the new Beta Evo 300 4t through its paces on the alternative route coming overall 6th.
On the yellow route the most impressive rider was the young Oliver Pekala who endeavoured to finish the trial while others retried. Overall Billy Andrews came 1st only dropping 36 marks, 10 marks clear of Richard Smith.

Results ..Expert- Ricky Wiggins RCM GasGas 250- 23, Simon Welch BVM Beta 270- 26, John Cowley GasGas 300-41
..50/50- Ben Toms Sherco 320- 52, Joel Mitson Scorpa 250-54, Kevin Lenox Beta 250- 68
..Alternative- Tim Wheeler Scorpa 250- 21, Martyn Wilmore GasGas250- 28, Rob Faulkner Scorpa 250-29
..Sportsman- Bill Andrews Beta 250- 36, Richard Smith Beta 250- 46, Tony Sullivan Cotswold - 58

Report By Natasha Rees