AS a teenager, Gary Parr rode across Plank Lane coal rucks at Leigh on a motorbike he had to keep hidden from his dad, never dreaming that he'd one day be 'Prince' of Wales.

But the Westleigh lad can claim even greater fame. After winning the Welsh Four Stroke Expert Enduro Championship for the fourth successive year he could rightly claim to be King of the Principality.

Dirt bike ace Gary learned the first rules of riding on the vast tract of colliery wasteland between Leigh and Bickershaw.

"I was 14 when I first started riding, but I wasn't allowed to have a bike so I had to keep it at a mate's house," he recalled.

"I learned to ride on the 'fields' and then started racing with Leigh MCC on the track they used to use at Crankwood Road. That was back in 1987 when I bought a Bolton-built Armstrong Rotax. It was a pig to start but I won my first race."

He turned to the gruelling world of Enduro racing in 1991 and has never looked back.

"I entered a Yorkshire Enduro Club event in 1991 on a Honda XR250, rode like a maniac and won," he smiled.

He stuck to 250 Honda four strokes for several years admitting "they didn't have much power but if you kept them flat out they did the business".

More potent machinery followed and after taking his first Welsh title in 2000 aboard a Suzuki DRZ400 he switched to the Swedish-built Husaberg winning on a 470 in 2001, a 400 in 2002 and a 501 in 2003 and his skills earned him sponsorship from Husaberg importer Dave Clarke Racing.

"I won the 2003 title by just one point," said the 39-year-old. "As the years have gone on the competition has got stronger. I'll still ride this season but I won't be chasing the championship."

But he's hoping one day his 12-year-old son Gareth might be.

When Gary's beating the best in the wilds of mid-Wales his fan club includes his wife, Amanda, daughter Sophie (10) and young Gareth, who just happens to have his own dirt bike.

Although practising for dad means transporting the bike a hundred miles or more young Gareth has more of a problem to learn how to get the best from his Honda XR100.

"I'm sure there's enough space on the old pit site to make a proper, safe, practise track," said Gary.

And maybe Gareth and other youngsters might get that opportunity.

In recent weeks Greater Manchester Police's off-road action team have taken on a high profile approach to cracking down on illegal off-road activity but those more responsible riders will take heart from GMP Traffic Unit's Supt Janette McCormick's recent newspaper statement that they are "developing plans to prevent access to public areas by off-road vehicles, while at the same time, providing appropriate facilities for off-road vehicles."