08/01/11-International Indoor Trial ,Sheffield: Toni Bou!.
Sheffield's indoor is still a prestige event, that can gather several thousand of spectators. It was a pity that this year it was not a round,normally the first one, of the World Indoor championship series, already disputed at the end of November, in Genova as you surely remember.
Riding in the new year means for riders who moved to an other factory, be caught while officially they mount their new machines. But the most expected of them, Jeroni Fajardo, lately moved to the new Ossa, was not invited by organizers and neither did Albert Cabestany. So this year the list of the entered riders was mainly home idols. The only three foreigners, curious, were the threes who occupied the first three positions at the end, we are talking of Repsol Montesa Tony Bou, Gas Gas Adam Raga and Repsol Montesa Takahisa Fujinami.
Not having to be stuck with the official X-Trial rules, organizers used a different formula. In a first qualifying fase with 8 riders, only two were eliminated. Dougie Lampkin, for sure the king of Sheffield for his past results was one of them, excluded by just one point in favour of Fujinami. Lampkin had few time for practising on the new Gas Gas bike, having signed a three-years contract with the Spanish factory. The other one eliminated was Sherco's Alexz Wigg.
Local public took confort for the great performance of James Dabill, now on Beta, who shared the first place with Toni Bou in this phase. They scored 13 points. In third Raga, 18, then Challoner 19, Brown 21 and Fujinami 22. This six riders started again for the final battle. Bou rode one step above all the others, scoring just 2 points. Raga, runner-up, lost 15 marks, while Fujinami with 21, grabbed the last place of the rostrum to the detriment of Dabill.
Next important event at Marseille on the 23rd of January, the second round of the SPEA FIM World X-Trial Championship. Photos by Eric Kitchen.

08/01/11-International Indoor Trial ,Sheffield: Toni Bou!.
Anche se non valido per il circuito mondiale, Sheffield rappresenta sempre un grande polo di attrazione per tutto il mondo del Trial.
Su Motosprint in edicola mercoledì 12 il commento.
Foto di Eric Kitchen

Final:
1: Bou 2
2: Raga 15
3: Fujinami 21
4: Dabill 29
5: Brown 30
6: Challoner 37

Qualifiers:
1: Toni Bou p. 13
2 James Dabill 13
3: Adam Raga 18,
4: Jack Challoner 19
5: Michael Brown 21
6: Takahisa Fujinami 22

Eliminated:
7 : Dougie Lampkin 23
8: Alexz Wigg 30