PANDEMIC RALLY CHALLENGE ROUND 1

May 8th, 2021

Conditions – Wet ground, dry skies
Adv Rally Class – 6 riders
Adv Rally X Class – 2 riders

Report:

Heavy rain on the Saturday meant that the tracks throughout Salisbury were wet, the chalky sections slippery and the puddles deep. After a quick pre-check of the first three stages by RallyMoto marshals Mike and Alex, the call was made by Burt to cut stage 2 – an “average time” stage of about 6km which runs along some tracks which were especially affected by the rain.

As the weather cleared up, the tracks began to dry out. As a credit to the riding ability of all the riders on course, the difficulty experienced on the day was mainly due to the technical navigation, rather than the terrain.

Riders were closely monitored on the tracking system by marshals in vans and on bikes, who as a team managed check points, assisted lost riders, guided riders through the tougher terrain and made sure everyone got back to base safely.

ADVENTURE RALLY CLASS

Due to a wiring issue, Colin rode the course without a tracker but closely watched by the closing riders, yet was totally unfazed about having his results calculated – his goal for the day was to have an adventure, and he assured us it’s exactly what he had!

Colin is a reminder to us all to get out and enjoy yourselves, never mind about the risk of adding odd ding or scratch to your bike.. They’re built for adventures so go and have some!

Colin was all smiles the whole way through, his old school attitude commanding respect from the fellow riders and crew.

From Salisbury he was straight off to ride the Peaks Icebreaker and the Welsh Icebreaker back to back, solo, to continue his roadbook rally adventures.

This was Jon Canning’s first roadbook rally event, although with experience in enduro and long distance trials and a natural knack for navigation, his accuracy on the course was applaudable. This was offset however, by the amount of speeding penalties accrued, highlighting the fact that this is a navigational excercise and in the Adventure Rally format, points awarded for speeding are quite severe.

May this be a tip for future riders!

Nonetheless a top effort by a friendly new face. Has he been bitten by the Adventure Rally bug?

Only time will tell…

Kudos to Matthew Seare on his BMW F850GS, who could have opted out and come back on a less slippery day, yet decided to give it a go anyway. A good decision in the end as he enjoyed the challenge and had a great day on the bike.

The most accurate navigator and speed conscious rider in the Adventure Rally class was Jon Piper on his T7. Given it was his first roadbook rally Jon did extremely well and judging by the level at which he was buzzing at the end of the day, we think he may be back for more…

“What a great adventure, and what a great introduction to rallying. I’d recommend it to anyone, it was a blast from start to finish”.

ADVENTURE RALLY EXTREME CLASS

Joel Nyman on his KTM 790R and Dave Campbell on his KTM 500 Rally bike were the two who took on the challenge of riding the extreme route, putting their navigational skills to the real test. Both found the course challenging, with a few moments of confusion over sections which gave CAP only directions, but that’s all part of the learning experience.