Finding a suitable venue for a round of the FIM Trial World Championship is a massive challenge, however Jake Miller – initially with Martin and now with Dougie – has an enviable track record of holding events in what many others would consider to be leftfield locations. When their three-year run at Hawkstone Park ended in 2007, L&M Events took a couple of years out before staging back-to-back world rounds at Fort William in the Scottish Highlands in 2010 and 2011. While the terrain is unbeatable, the geographical location – 100 miles north of Glasgow along often narrow, winding roads – was not ideal and running there was a calculated risk.

“Fort William is a fantastic venue with great facilities, but it was just too far north to draw enough people at a time when fuel and accommodation was expensive,” said Miller. “We were very fortunate to have Event Scotland and Highland Council funding, and we made it financially viable, but what it wasn’t doing was serving the mass of the trials and off-road public because they couldn’t afford to travel there. So, while we were financially secure with the events, we had to realise that most trials fans weren’t actually coming.”

Following Martin Lampkin’s death in 2016, Miller – under the banner of his new Sport7 company – staged a world round the following year at Tong near Bradford before making the bold decision to run in 2018 at Addingham Moorside, overlooking the Lampkin’s hometown of Silsden. This choice was not exactly greeted with wild enthusiasm in certain quarters, and many felt the iconic venue – basically a plot of land on the side of a rocky hill – was not suited to a major event. However, Miller was determined to pay tribute to his late friend and run at Addingham Moorside and, luckily, the stars aligned.

“It was something that me and Martin had discussed, and it felt like a bit of unfinished business,” said Miller. “It was obviously Dougie’s practice ground and while Hawkstone was great and Fort William was amazing, I wanted to show to the trials world that while permanent facilities like Motegi are great, we need to be flexible and adaptable. There was a lot of push-back from the factories and federations who did not want to run at Addingham Moorside. There was no infrastructure there and it was a huge challenge, we were incredibly lucky with the weather, and it turned out to be an amazing weekend in the heartland of trials. We had a good pre-sale and because the sun shone, we had an amazing turn-out – it was a great event for riders and fans.”

“The flipside is that ever since 2018 we have been constantly looking for opportunities and exploring different things. COVID obviously got in the way and then Dougie had the desire to bring back the indoor trial at Sheffield and that was first on the agenda.” So, while Anglesey is a totally new and unproven venue for trials, Miller and Lampkin are going into their new project with their eyes wide open and confident that they can deliver the best possible event, and perhaps one of the best the series has ever seen in its fifty years plus history.

“That’s what we do, we take on challenges,” added Miller. “We have a little saying me and Dougie which is ‘make it happen’ and that’s what we’ve become renowned for. We’re a strange little island post-Brexit and, from a rider and team point of view, it’s difficult and expensive to come to the UK.
We’ve been in the paddock long enough and we’ve moaned long enough about what we think about facilities and venues for trials so if we’re going to drag them across the Channel, we need to deliver something that Dougie and I are both proud of, and that is going to blow away the British fans on all levels.”