On The Pegs December 2019 - Volume 4 - Issue 12 | Page 133

On The Pegs
VOL. 4 ISSUE 12 - DECEMBER 2019
133
Dougie Lampkin MBE: champion, ambassador and legend.
2019 marks twenty-five years since Dougie Lampkin won both his first
World Championship event and his first Scottish Six Days Trial (SSDT). At
the age of forty-three and with an unrivalled pal-mares he can certainly
now be classed as a champion, ambassador and legend.
Q: 1994 was a defining year in your career – what can you remember
about that season?
DL: It actually started a bit earlier as I had won the European Championship
in 1993 and signed my first Beta factory contract so I had pushed hard with my
training in preparation for the season ahead. I had ridden my first SSDT in 1993
with Nigel Birkett who had rode the event many years with my father. I was in-
structed to follow him all week, which I’m sure Nigel wasn’t too delighted about,
however I took as much advice from him as I could and I’m sure it would have
taken me many more years to gain this amount of knowledge without his help.
I had ridden as much as possible and started the 1994 event well and with the
advice from dad and riding with my cousin John Lampkin and great friend Paul
Dixon I managed to win the SSDT. This was a trial I had fol-lowed all my life and
dreamt about competing in so I couldn’t believe it had happened and cer-tainly
took a while to sink in, especially coming just two weeks after my first World Trial
win at Houghton Tower.
After winning the European title in 1993 – were you satisfied with finish-
ing sixth in the World at your first attempt in 1994?
I was happy with how the year had gone as I won my first World Trial, which
came as a bit of a surprise to everyone including myself. I was starting to be
more noticed around the World and with that came a little more pressure espe-
cially from myself to push on and put in as much effort as possible. I was getting
more and more help from Beta and as I received the ‘special parts’ the more I
loved it. I was going in the right direction and was very motivated to keep up the
hard work.
Whilst you moved up to fourth in the World ranking the following year
– 1995 – were you dis-appointed not to win another World Championship
round that season?
The results went a bit up and down during that season as I think the pressure