DESPITE the almost monsoon conditions prevailing in the Aire Valley on Saturday, the pastures at Town End Farm, Ickornshaw, on Sunday morning were almost dusty for Bradford and District Motor Club's third club championship trial.

Even the Ickornshaw Beck was no more than ankle deep for the competitors.

The water was so inviting that some riders took an impromptu dip.

Silsden's Stephen Addy and machine were horizontal for a few minutes in section two.

Anthony Ayrton rode section eight then ran after daughter Lucy at the next section forgetting green slimy rocks are slippery.

His breaststroke impersonation brought some applause.

The entire ten section trial tracked the beck with diversions up the banks and also some near vertical climbs up the valley walls.

Sections three to seven were all stream crossings.

The sixth crossed the stream then climbed 20 metres up a grass bank then hairpin turn and back down for the top guys.

The muddy stream bank was in play at the eighth and it did catch a few for soft marks.

In terms of who won what Cross Roads expert Phil Disney returned to the trials action resplendent in Repsol Honda clothing and a Montesa 4RT that seemed to come straight out of a showroom.

Disney won the expert class, losing a single mark in the slippery section on lap two while challenger Sam Boocock was troubled in the last three sections where three of his four penalties were incurred.

Silsden's Gabby Whitham competed for the first time since her appendix removal operation.

In the 50/50 category, winner John Holdsworth and Adam Thornton were equal on the second section but Thornton footed the penultimate climb.

Simon Armstrong got his Gas Gas home ahead of Keighley's Montesa 315 mounted Steve Wilde to win the Easy class.

Wilde got it all wrong in the eighth with a damaging eight mark loss that killed his chances of a class victory.

Colne teenager Leoni Tighe was the star on beginners course finished 10 ahead of Mike Frizzell and 15 up on the other Lancashire visitor Lauren Crowder.

And the rain came, torrential rain, plus hailstones, but the weather on Saturday afternoon prevailing in Nidderdale failed to deter over seventy competitors competing in Wetherby and District Motor Club's first Norman Crooks Trophy trial of the season.

Many homed in on the venue at Clockensyke Farm, Darley, mid-afternoon for a 5.30pm start. Michael Benson plotted the ten section four lap event with the low meadow featuring the narrow stream and the rocks below the west wall boundary.

The hard route was won on a dab tiebreaker when Rawdon's Sam Beecroft-Penny dabbed in the penultimate section on the fourth lap.

Glasshouses electrician Danny Gamble indulged in a dab but on lap three and in more or less the same spot as where the Beecroft-Penny boot touched down.

Barnoldswick's Anthony Ayrton claimed the Inter class on eleven penalties while Boroughbridge novice Aldis Blacker planted his Yamaha at the top of the novice runners.

The fifty/fifty route was topped by Over 50's namely Eldroth's Paul Jackson and Rob Hardisty with Tom Peacock heading the novice ranks ahead of Ian Myers, the latter fresh from his twenty first place in the Pre-65 Scottish.