North Berks Super Trial…

Michael Brown took his GGUK GasGas to a superb runner up position at the recent North Berks mcc Super trial.. full report on Trial Magazine site.

2011 BTC… latest news

Shirty Says…

MICHAEL BROWN, No.1 JST GGUK Rider, was second yesterday at the fantastic Yeadon Guiseley & District ‘Mackenzie Trophy Trial’ at Brimham Rocks. I say fantastic because the event was superb and full marks must go to the club for getting the severity of the sections spot on. For the winners of both the Championship Class and Expert Class to lose 30 marks prove it was about perfect. I was very impressed with Michael, who rode very well indeed. Both James Dabill and Michael put on a fantastic show for the spectators and regardless of Michael’s result (win or lose) I was very happy with his riding. It was a close fight all day with both riders making a few mistakes and also both having some awesome rides. Dibs won so respect to him but my man was not far behind and I was a certainly proud sponsor yesterday.”

British World Round news…

Shirty Says - “No.1 JST GGUK Rider Michael Brown has just finished 6th at the UK round of the 2011 World Trials Championship in Scotland. I must say the event was superb with some good natural sections with the severity about spot on judging by the scores. A few sections were possibly a bit too long for the 1.5 minute rule. Michael rode very well and was quite relaxed considering the nerves that go with riding your ‘home GP’. I think winning the BTC round two weekends ago helped Michael in believing in himself. He had a superb start which saw him in 5th place after the first lap. He used his head on the very long hard sections and went for the ‘three’ to save the vital two marks. A few mistakes on the second lap together with a stunning second lap from James Dabill saw Michael slip just one place to 6th for his best result of the year and equaling his best ever WTC result. This good result now sees Michael back to 8th in the Championship standings only 3 points behind Loris Gubian, who had a bad day. With Japan being the next round and also a two day event, all is set for a ‘championship shake-up’ with some of the top riders still talking about not going… Team GG is there in full force with Adam, Doug, Loris and Michael”

Top Step of the Podium…

Michael Brown took his GGUK GasGas to a brilliant win at the latest round of the ACU British Trials Championship run by the Torridge dmcc in Hartland,  Devon.

Michael Brown in Devon

Michael took the lead right from the first section when his close friend and rival James Dabill had an unexpected 5 on the first big step of the trial. A 7 mark advantage after the first lap grew wider as Michael stunned everyone by posting two more laps of just 4 marks each. Not only did Michael take the first win by anyone other than Dibs for 15 championship events but he lost less than half of James’ 2nd place total… a very convincing piece of work. It was also good to see fellow GasGas rider Ross Danby take a fine 3rd spot at the end of the day.

Heavy overnight rain had given the sections down in the wooded stream area an extra layer of mud and scores looked like they may be high. The club sensibly shortened many sections just before the event to enable riders the chance of getting to the ends cards within the 90 second time allowance, a move that allowed the event to keep flowing nicely.

John Shirt jnr sadly missed his team leader taking the win as a medical emergency required him to be airlifted to hospital during the Saturday practice lap… best wishes go to Shirty for a speedy recovery.

Michael now has 2 weeks until the British round of the world trials championship and then back to BTC action the week after that.

World round, Italy. 10th July 2011

John Shirt report from Italy…

“No.1 JSTGGUK Rider Michael Brown continued his current ‘dip in form’ with a 10th place finish at the Italian WTC yesterday.

The conditions were very hot and humid and all riders were affected, some more than others. Michael felt very weak all day and was sick numerous times. His energy levels were ‘nil’ on the second lap.

Michael certainly does not have a fitness issue because he’s currently in good shape and training hard so a mystery bug maybe..

Nevertheless Michael is a very strong character and kept fighting until the end. We salvaged the day and scored 6 valuable world points. Michael is now 9^th in the championship, two points behind Jack Challoner…. Michael needs to return to the form he showed in France to reach his realistic goal of world number 7 for next year.

Please understand at this highest level of World Trials only a slight dip in form can heavily affect the final result and things are just not going to plan at the moment but I’m sure that he’ll bounce back soon. There is no issue with the Team or the bikes, all is well there.

Congrats to Adam Raga who had a superb second place with an awesome last lap of only one mark lost.

The event was the best of the series to date with not over the top sections you can see by the results. The observing was, shall we say ‘Italian’ and all the UK riders could sure use some ‘help’ at our own round please in three weeks time.”

BTC #5 this coming weekend in Devon…

St. Davids.. wet wet wet!

John Shirt fills us in on Michael’s day..

“The JST GGUK Trials Team was out in force at yesterdays 4^th Round of the British Trials Championship organised by the Neath Motor Club at Ammanford in South Wales.

We arrived for the practice lap on Saturday after a few showers on route. The club had made good efforts to change the sections from last year which was the first event at this new venue. The problem is the club overdid the severity and most sections were changed after the practice lap, which the club did well.
However, after the over night rain and continued rain ALL day yesterday saw the stream water level rise to an unride-able level and the event was cut short to 2 laps from the planned 3.

Even with changed sections, the weather forced the event to be very high scoring because of the weather / terrain.
JST No.1 Rider Michael Brown had another second place on his new Raga bike, behind winner James Dabill. Michael struggled to ‘get going’ on the first lap and was in 3^rd place after lap 1, two marks behind his JST team mate Sam Haslam who was riding well.
We hung back a little bit too much on the first lap knowing the muddy banks / ruts would get better after the eight championship riders had settled the sections. On section 11 Michael flicked the rear Michelin off the rim so a hasty wheel change was needed. This put us the last rider and as you can imagine with the water levels rising fast this was not ideal. Nevertheless Michael rode with his head and purposely went for ‘threes’ on the impossible sections and he was successful to get through half of the twelve sections. A handful of good rides got him back to second in front of Sam.

So it was another runner up place for Michael but it was Sam Haslam’s first ever BTC podium finish so well done to Sam!”

2011 FIM World Championship opener…

Michael on the German rocks

John Shirt reports from Gefrees, Germany…

“No1 JSTGGUK Rider Michael Brown finished 8^th at the first round of the outdoor World Trials Championship in Germany.

It was a tough, high scoring event with the sections being slightly too difficult, especially for the opening round. However the venue was superb.

The overnight rain didn’t help making the mainly woodland sections really slippery on the first lap and Michael started with a nervous ‘three’ on section one. Toni Bou also started nervously with a ‘two’. Most of the other top riders went clean but Dibs and Dougie ‘fived’.

Section two was awesome with a huge cliff face mid section. Micheal lined the gasser up and made a committed attack which resulted in a huge crash where the bike cart wheeled to the bottom of the section. Michael was fine, just shook up. Shaughan initially grabbed the bike but was forced to let go when the bike landed back wheel first on full revs. Needless to say the bike was wrecked and Factory mechanic ‘isma’ together with myself and Shaughan set about repairing Michaels No.1 bike replacing complete airbox, complete exhaust and rear mudguard. The Renthals were also bent but only slightly which Michael dealt with. Then we pushed on to catch up with the leading ‘group’.

Michael settled into the day and had some really good rides, saving some good marks with some spirited ‘three mark’ rides. A positive ‘clean’ on section eleven saw the lap recovering very well. A bad five on thirteen was not good, this ride was to eventually lose him 7^th place. Another five on fourteen (easy done) on the final attack of the section spoilt a solid lap. A lap of 41 would have put him in a solid 6^th place, four in front of Dabill. Instead we were 9^th but it was close between Dibs, Gubian, Grattarola, Brown and struggling Dougie Lampkin.

Michael started the second lap determined to climb the leader board. A solid one mark ride on section one was positive. His throttle started to stick on two so he sensibly pulled out of the section before the rock face that he’d crashed on the previous lap.

We then found that during the mayhem on the first lap the carb had got soil in from the airbox change which was making the slide stick so we had to remove and clean the carb out to sort. After the super-hard third and fourth sections ‘Pune’ again settled into some real good riding clawing some marks back. An awesome one mark ride on nine was needed and got us all pumped! Another superb one mark ride on thirteen was welcome. With no time left to ride fourteen, a five was taken to stay un-penalised for time. An easy clean on the last ended the lap six marks better than lap one to finish in 8^th place only three marks behind ‘Gratta’ in 7^th.

Michael was disappointed at the finish which I like to see because he knows he could have done a lot better. I was actually happy with his riding. He did well to settle after his bike-wrecking crash and he put 100% into the day so I cannot ask for more. To see a riders disappointment only adds ‘fuel to the fire’ and I can assure you that Michael is buzzing with confidence and will hope to bounce back in France this coming weekend.”

Many thanks to Sergio for the image… more from the event HERE