SC riders had a small force onsite at the Mid Ohio vintage trial. Contesting the Modern Classic class, was Harry Heileman (E), Gene Brown (E), Curt Elliot (N), and I ran in Premier Lightweight (E).

Harry showed up ready to shake up the action with the 1 line guys on his "new" TY250. This beauty was sporting a solid steel skidplate that looked like something from a civil war steam-powered warship. Harry estimated it added about 20 or 30 pounds to the bike. He also added that his tuning/preparation pre-event was basically getting this bike from somewhere, riding it around the back yard for a few minutes, then hauling it up to Mid-Ohio. Still, he had a pretty good day and got 3rd place, congrats! Also, his Yamaha had nice spray painted flames on the tank (added by the previous owner), which no doubt put fear into the other 1 line riders.

Suzuki rider Gene Brown had a less successful day on the 1 line. On only his second section of the day, he tested some of his "Mick Andrews" training on a nice uphill, slanted, off camber log crossing which was raised up from the hillside about a foot to a foot and a half. A pretty good obstacle for vintage, actually. I wasn't there in person, but the description he gave me was that he didn't quite make it up over this log, and that the incredible torque of the RL250 sent the bike upwards and him backwards. He landed on his back and impacted his ribs and elbow on rocks. After the wind returned to his lungs, he found his elbow was bleeding pretty good, and had a little help getting the bike upright. This effectivly ended his day, and later took a trip to the doc-in-a-box for stitches since the elbow would not stop bleeding. Sorry pal! Get better for Cornelia!

Curt was having a good day on the Bultaco in the novice class, which had about 50 entries!! The slick black muddy areas gave problems and took points from all classes during the day, and with the high number of entries Curt's ride however ride put him back out of the top ten or so. Some of the lines for sections were so long that it didn't help much to walk them on 2nd or 3rd loops, since it's easy to forget the layout by the time you ride (I can tell you from personal experience). Curt finished in time and had a fun day.

I started out my day with my trademark initial "ugly 5" in the first section I rode. This seems to be my specialty. Once the jitters went away I felt good. Overall my cub ran ok though a few times I gave 'er gas and had a cough before it went anywhere. One of the neat things about the Mid Ohio trial is there are lots of spectators and some of the sections, and they take pictures and clap and so forth. So, at one of these public sections I took a wonderful 5 riding around the wrong side of a split and then lost and in a circle. My other friends who drove up from Columbia had a laugh at that. But in the end I got a third which was nice (but in the class I was riding there were only four of us-- so it could also be termed I was next-to-last!)

In the end, the bottom line was that asisde from one of us having to get stiched up to stop the bleeding it was a fun trial and it was great to participate.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: John Furr,

Nice report John!

Very nice read John!

Great job John.
No need to tell anyone about only 4 in the class.
I consider myself the winningest Twinshock Class rider in the STRA and my little Montesa had never lost a twinshock trial! Works good until Jordan chimes in with "The Rest of the Story"