The Keyneton MCC’s 45th Mountain Man Trial was run on June 17th 2018 as the ‘Rockhopping SA’ 10th SA Women’s Cup & Diener/Holmes Sidecar Trophy in the Barossa Ranges, right at the top of Rifle Range Road, near Tanunda, and, it is thought, a motorcycle event had an all-female officiating crew for the time at any event of any discipline in Australian motorcycling history!
The Mountain Man was named 45 years ago by Bob Petts in recognising Geoff ‘Wack’ Barratt as a ‘mountain of a man’ in many ways and is now one of the longest running trials in South Australia, and now for the past 5 years has hosted the SA Women’s Cup and Diener/Holmes Sidecar Trophy, an event that was a FIM Women in Motorcycling Award finalist in 2016, as well as being the first event in SA to have the girls & women in the sport headline the event!
To celebrate the 10th running of the event it was decided to employ an all-female officiating crew, so Steward, Clerk of Course, Race Secretary and Chief Scrutineer. In past years many female officials have officiated at the event, but never all four in one year, so the following officials were approached, with all jumping at the chance to be a part of history!
So, who are they, well, all are from different clubs, with only 2 having a ‘trials background’ and only 1 being a ‘trials only’ official, so we thank, and congratulate our history makers;
Steward; Karen Wedge
A member of the Australian Sidecarcross Association, with a motocross, and also off road background
Clerk of Course; Tyler Hogan
A member of the AJS MTC, and a trials only background
Race Secretary; Carole Tune
A member of the Levis MCC, with a reliability trials and motocross (ACUSA Park) background
Chief Scrutineer; Wendy Holmes
A member of the Keyneton MCC, with a trials background, as well as reliability trials and off road
Also helping on the day to add to the female flavour were; 2016 Australian Trials Champion Melissa Rogers, who assisted with scrutineering, and Tanja Warnest, who was the official scorer for the event.
They all witnessed a great promotion of women in trials, and motorcycling in general, as 2018 Motorcycling SA Elite Rider, Lillie Yiatrou (Rockhopping SA, The Hell Team, TRS 125), rose above all opposition to become the 2018 SA Women’s Cup Overall Champion, the first junior, and at 14 years of age, the youngest rider to win the event in its 10 year history.
Great rides were also had by Anna Rogers (Trialsport Beta 200) who took out Sport Women in her first ride on the blue line, Melissa Rogers (Trialsport Beta 200) in Novice Women (and swapping 3 wheels for 2), Charlotte Cowan (Gas Gas 80) in Junior A and a very first win for Brooke Hewitt (Beta 80) in Junior B.
To top off the day nicely for the girls, Bultaco mounted Matilda Kraft, teamed with her father, Shane, to be the ‘last sidecar standing’ in the Diener/Holmes Sidecar Trophy, so were declared to be the 2018 Overall Champions after the other teams all recorded a DNF on the day!
Congratulations to the female motorcycling fraternity for an outstanding effort all round, and to the Trials SA community and the Keyneton MCC for promoting this event so well!
The Keyneton MCC would like to also thank Greg Knight from Rockhopping SA for his continued support of this event, as well as Peter Arnold from Trialsport for the online entry & scoring program used for the event and Denise and crew from Café dee Wheels for the awesome catering.