With a comfortable win at the penultimate round which was held at Rock & Hop yesterday, Brad Bullock (Beta) has kept the pressure on his arch rival, Dan Thorpe (GasGas) whilst we have a five week break ahead of the season finale.
With the twelve sections being perfect for the wide range of ability riders, Bullock kept his losses to a minimum with lap scores of 5-5-6, whilst Thorpe went 8 -11 -7. The extra best lap bonus point for the Beta rider could prove vital when the results are finalised at Geddington on September 24th.
Emma Bristow MBE (Sherco) made a welcome return to the podium and was right in contention, but two failures on her last lap put her in a tie break position for the last step on the podium. Our ladies World Champion elect recorded laps of 9-11-13.
Fourth place finisher, Charlie Smith (Vertigo) was right in contention after the opening lap of twelve sections, but could not keep the pressure on the leading duo and slipped to fourth at the end of a superb event.
With the Trial Electric championship already sewn up, Chris Pearson (EM) riding at the head of the field, finished fifth ahead of Tom Swindlehurst (Sherco) whose sixth place finish now puts him into the seeded riders for the last round.
Malcolm Summers (GasGas) was engaged in a day long battle with Sam Beecroft-Penny (TRRS) which was eventually resolved by three more cleans to take seventh, meaning that Sam slips to fourth in the standings.
Joshua McParland (Beta) recorded his best finish of the season in ninth which could have been even better without two fiascos in the last four sections on the final tour of the race.
After missing some rounds earlier in the year, Elliott Laws (Scorpa) rounded out the top ten.
Our thanks to Mike Rapley for the image of Thorpe.