Kyle Middlteton (NSW), took out the Perth round of the X Trial Australian Championship on Sunday, surviving the hardest course ever put together. Middleton rode incredibly well on a day thats saw some massive crashes, to hold out Tasmania’s Chris Bayles and South Australian young gun, Connor Hogan.
Kyle dominated the qualifying round dropping only 4 points to head off Bayles who had a solid ride on 10 points. Young South Australian star Connor Hogan, qualified with a solid ride on 19 points. Whilst the 4th and last place went to Colin Zarczynski (NSW) on a count back, after a 3 way tie, with his brother Kevin and Neil Price (WA). They all tied on 21 points a piece.
Chris Bayles said,” The sections were spot on 10/10, they really sorted out the top 4, and its hard to seperate them over only 6 sections. It was really intense there was no room for any mistake”. The course was very big and very technical, with almost
every rider having at least one big moment, but even after some big hits they all kept fighting. “That was the best trial I have ever ridden”, said Victorian Tom Scott.” really tough, but great fun”.
In the Final, Middleton got through the Road Barrier section on for 3 points whilst all others dropped 5’s. He then extended the early lead on the skip bins in Section 2 when he had an incredible ride going “clean” (0 points). Chris Bayles fought back on the biggest section of the day, the Titan Australia tyres, 3m up he floated through for only 1 point, whilst Middleton took a conservative 3. But it was too little, too late. As no rider got through the last two sections, Middleton took out the final on 19 points, five clear of Bayles on 24 points and Connor Hogan snuck onto the podium on 29 points.
“Once again X Trial proved to be a real challenge for me, with its short, intense format and head to head style of competition. I am happy with my Performance but it was far from perfect.” said Middleton the eternal perfectionist. ”I think i managed to handle the difficulty better than last year. The sections were harder than last year, which made for some pretty unpredictable and tight competition which I really enjoyed. Cant wait for the next one.”
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