Engine Punk

Contemplating the route card over Christmas I have just been plotting with my mud brother, the irrepressible Lee Peck, about the forthcoming 90th Exeter Trial. The 90th! Lee's Christmas shopping in Oxford. I had barely woken up as I am trying to bank sleep before the excitement of the festive season begins - Christmas, New Year, Exeter Trial. There is a LOT about which to get excited. Lee will be passengering me in my recently acquired Arkley-MG Midget, running in Class 7. We'll be starting from Sourton Cross near Okehampton and as this is only the second outing with this car, after the Camel Classic earlier this month, we are out for the crack and a Finisher's certificate. So what's new? Anything more than that is a bonus. Shiny new trials car The Arkley was owned by Ray Goodwright for many years and has been developed for much of that time by another mud brother, Adrian Booth. Age bought it last year and brought it back to life with lots of new p...

Vickers Wellington (Photo : Wikipedia) Thanks to my cousin, John Turner, who contacted the archivist at Davidstow Airfield museum , I can now confirm that it was not flying boat but a Wellington crash that my mother witnessed. Even better, this crash occurred with no loss of life although the crew were quite shaken up. Well wouldn't you be? From the crash site, one can see the control tower at Davidstow airfield jut below the horizon, far left  My 89 year old mother is writing her memoirs and this was one of the mysteries in her life that we wanted to clear up. This is how she relates the tale of her sighting and also how we resolved this long-standing mystery. "While we were staying in Cornwall during the war, I witnessed an air crash. "This must have happened while we were staying at Otterham Mill, near Boscastle with Mrs Hocking. I suppose it was a sort of private evacuation and we arrived at Otterham station with our bikes on the train. My father ...

Brian Partridge's Ridge-Cannon This is a long overdue series of notes about the car in which I passengered Brian Partridge in the 2016 Land's End Trial . This blog is as much for my benefit as anyone else's. Over time, some details can get lost. I really mean forgotten. I have been wanting to record something about Brian's car ever since the 2016 LET, which we now regard as Lee Peck's stag do. I don't drink but things are already getting a little hazy with the passage of time so I gave Brian  a ring and quizzed him about his car, in between enthusing about Vintage Things, trailling and swapping tales of derring-do with our motorsport chumrades. It's a well-proportioned little rascal even if I can't fit in it Brian has developed his Ridge-Cannon over many years. It started off life as a Cannon sporting trials car with a beam front axle and a Ford 1172cc engine but when Brian got it in 1986 it had a crossflow Ford engine. The chassis pro...

At the start, our Arkley-MG and Troll of Terry and Bob Hart look very clean I missed out on my fix of motorsport this year and, determined put that right, I have bought the Arkley-MG Midget that Ray Goodright campaigned for many years. More about that little car later as a Vintage Thing. I have entered the Exeter Trial and the long-distance classic trials are really my favourite. However, it seemed a good idea to enter a local one-day trial beforehand to get used to the car, especially if I could persuade Adrian Booth to be my passenger. The event we plumped for was the Camel Classic, run by the Camel Vale Motor Club, on 2 nd December 2018. This is run under ACTC rules and eligible for MCC members. The class structure is the same so we were running in Class 7. The format is not like an MCC trial, despite some of the hills being familiar to us. The sections are marked out with numbered poles starting with 12 at the bottom and 1 at the top. Getting the furthest up the ...

Still driveable but rolling injured, the Candidi Provocatores Allard J1 It was Stephen Bailey's idea to have a Team Steampunk in the 2018 Land's End Trial and it was such a good idea I wished it had been mine. He invited Binky and me in our guise as Candid Provocateurs to join and also canvassed for a third entrant to make up the necessary numbers. Dave Middleditch stepped forward and - with goggles akimbo - we looked forward to the 2018 LET with gathering anticipation. Unfortunately, Stephen had damaged his knee backalong on the Torbay Trial and then suffered a herniated disc in his spinal column. Driving a long distance and then bouncing up and down - or being bounced - in the driving seat of his Midge gradually seemed like a bad idea. Meanwhile, Dave lost oil pressure on the engine in his 1500 Midget. Undaunted, he then set about an eleventh hour  rebuild but was thwarted at the  la st minute by a combination of timing, maladjusted combustion and then two flat ba...