2019 Launceston Trial

Pop Asylum may be responsible for the Beetle's muddy face (Photo : Graham Beddoe)

Regular listeners will remember that in last month’s episode I almost circumnavigated the course of the Exeter Trial but broke a half shaft on Tipley with my recently acquired Arkley-MG. 

Look at my shafts

After an involved rescue mission back to the secret lair of its developer, a cunning plan evolved requiring £600 worth of uprated Quaife shafts with detachable output flanges. The inner remains of the tortured shaft came out in several increasingly smaller instalments and the good shaft – considered to be good only by comparison to the broken one – revealed not just an ominous twist in its splines but also a wobble on its output shaft so it was bent as well.

It's a twister!

Adrian – Professor Booth of Doublebois – had broken a shaft on the other side of the axle on Crackington in last years’ LET. This was the same occasion and hill that Binky and I snapped a perch bolt on the Allard. 

These splines don't look too clever, either

Some of you may be wondering how often this sort of thing happens.

Age totted up the numbers of snapped shafts over the last twenty years and reckoned only two had occurred in that time, both of them within the last 12 months.

Things that make you go… Hmm.

Whisper it but I had never actually had a rear axle apart before, so, while Age removed the diff, extracted the shrapnel within and then fitted the new ones (made out of En24 no less) I watched, very closely.

Ten years ago now I marshalled on the Launceston Trail, run by the Launceston & North Cornwall Motor Club and in 2019 it seemed appropriate behaviour to enter this event (the 33^rd) and try not to break anything else.

This event is held in and around Lew Wood south of Lewtrenchard, where the Reverend Sabine Baring-Gould lived and worked. I have a book on werewolves by him and, although by no means a “sensitive”, when I marshalled with Warin Kelly before, I thought the woods were a bit creepy, beautiful but still eerie,

Adrian was helping out with marshalling and scrutineering so couldn’t really passenger for a competitor so I asked one of my Hillman Imp enthusiast friends to come along. Graham Beddoe was the Imp Club chairman backalong and had done a few a PCTs with his Imp years ago. He is also a very enthusiastic and interesting fellow with a penchant for hotrods and travel in the USA.

As navigator, Graham didn’t have such an onerous task because after signing on we were presented with a beautifully executed course map in living colour. I had to ask Clerk-of-Course Nigel Cowling who was responsible for this and he said the artist was Warin Kelly no less.

We had some climbs and some successful restarts. There were one or two where we hardly got anywhere. A large proportion of the sections were straight through (provided you were any good) but there were still a few that needed a descent in reverse, even if you go all the way up. Those were usually the ones we barely got off the start line. 

A Porsche with attitude

Some sections stood out more than others.

I made a complete hash of the first special test. The front wheels washed out in the muddy conditions and I had to reverse when I should have had really had space to take the corner properly. Then I was still in reverse when it came to going forward and stalled the clock. Maybe timed events are not my forte.

I liked the sections on Eastcott Down, although the restart at the top of Eastcott Down 4 impeded our progress the second time around. In short, we got away in the end but got stuck doing a loop around a tree and its slippery roots. Graham had to get out and push with Sean Lenny the marshal. He help us jiggle back and forth and I suggested he’d had to do this once or twice during the day but he diplomatic replied that ours was the most interesting climb. I had to let the tyres down to an indicated 8psi and with just me in the car and a little shove there was enough grip to clear the top of the section.

The Bank was an embarrassment. We really should have got further and more beans would have helped but the steering went over to the dark side under power in the sloppy mud. This happened quite often, especially where the section began at right angles to the ascent. With momentum, the car gets on with it but its ballast gives it inertia and you can end up going straight on.

Some of our Class 7 competitors await the special test. (Photo : Graham Beddoe)

One restart I relished was either Nige’s Nip or Nearly There. Waggling the front wheels on the steering helps the little car elbow its way up over the roots. On occasions we went “off piste” under power but once we fell back into the wheel ruts it felt like we were almost on rails and I could really use some revs to get us away.

We picked up a puncture after our second go at Raddon Rise after lunch and that meant we were towards the back of the pack. Some of the marshals said running water had appeared from further up the hills to wash out the ruts. Conditions certainly didn’t get any easier.

We were struggling quite nicely on Are we nearly there yet?, which went on and on and on and on until we came to an abrupt stop. It felt like I’d lost all drive again but Nigel Cowling popped out of the ground and said tree roots had emerged during the passage of the cars and we had to pulled out by a Tonka toy six-wheeled farm buggy, complete with winch.

I prefer Rootes to roots (Photo : Graham Beddoe)

Tyres pressures were a key learning point from the day. On the Exeter 14psi in the rears seemed most efficacious but that was too hard for these conditions. We could have done with less air in the fronts as well.

I don’t think my pressure gauge was reading properly either. I must get a new one for the LET at Easter. And a go pro is, as Graham put it, a no-brainer. The sections come thick and fast on a trial like this and individually they become blurred. A better record than my memory is required.

We finished though and had the top down all the time. Open cars are definitely my preference for trialling. You can see everything so much more easily and thank the marshals and engage in ribaldry with your fellow competitors.

We only had one puncture. Adrian said we weren't trying hard enough. In other news, is that snow on the far hills or bright sunshine? (Photo : Graham Beddoe)

Clive Kalber in his Pop hit a tree so hard his door flew open. He nonchalantly closed the door and with Norton Selwood bouncing hard he still cleared the section in style.

It was a great crack although we appeared to be representing The Not Terribly Good Club of Great Britain. Again.

Graham said he had an absolute ball. In some of the YouTube vids he's bouncing like Count Bouncy of Bouncy Castle.

We both remarked on the interesting smells you get with trialling. The aroma of hot engine follows me around most places but engines on carbs smell different from those running injection. Then there is the steam in your nostrils when you go through puddles and that special sort of petrichor that only trialling brings - disturbed earth, baked on mud and (somehow) burning wood. Must be those damned roots again.

One last picture from the black museum

I am entered in the LET at Easter with Binky but quite fancy another one-dayer event like this one in between times. It has occurred to me that perhaps this kind of event will be the future for drivers of classic machinery as driverless electric carriages take over and restrictions on the use of the internal combustion engine, either through availability of fuel or legislation, mean we can't use them as we do now.