Kyle Middleton wins his fourth straight Australian Trials Championship aboard 'The Hell Team' sponsored Gas Gas 300 Factory.
Sunny Stanthorpe, Queensland was the setting for the 2016 Lucas Oils Logan Glass Australian Trials Championships. Middleton opened his championship campaign with a clean score card after day one. Some tougher sections and a bit of fatigue saw the Newcastle local drop a meager 7 points on day two. His closest rival in the Open Solo class was Tasmanian Chris Bayles (Gas Gas) who scored 41 points for the weekend. Debuting the new Vertigo Trials bike at its first Australian Championship, Colin Zarczynski rounded out the podium on 43 points.
Middleton is fresh back from the Italian Trial World Championships where he competed in the Trial 2 class as well as a successful Trial Des Nations team campaign at the Isola 2000 ski resort in France.
Kristie McKinnon, fellow Trial des Nations team member was all praise for the four-time champion "He probably works harder than any trials rider in Australia. He's definitely earned it. He's won four titles and I wouldn't be surprised if he did four more."
The 2016 championship win for Kyle means a guaranteed entry to compete at the invitation only X-Trial Australian Championships in 2017. Revealed by X-Trial organisers this weekend, the event is all but signed off to be held at the indoor HPF Stadium in Perth, Western Australia this February.
Whilst four times is the charm, the pressure is on for a fifth title which will write Middleton into the history books for most consecutive Australian Open Solo Trials Championships titles on record.