2021 Presidents Trial
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| At the start from left to right, 1900cc BMW 316 of Rob and Michael Holden, 2 litre Escort of Ken Bassett and Liam Hartley, Class winning X90 of Simon and Charlotte Lewis and Darren Ruby with Lisa, Ashley and Zak in their BMW E36 Compact. |
The 2021 Presidents Trial took place on 18th April, organised by the redoubtable Camel Vale Motor Club and back to its usual slot after Covid caused it to be postponed to October in 2020. After a freshen up of my steed during the winter lockdown and survival in the MCC Pop Up Trial, I entered the Arkley-MG as a singleton although I could have had a bouncer. What we can, and cannot, do changes frequently and I tend to lose track of where we're to. I wasn't the only driver without a bouncer but if you had an MSUK licence holder in your bubble you were laughing and if you didn't you could still laugh but behind a mask.
Conditions were very dry, much drier than when Stuart Palmer and I competed in his Austin 7 Ulsteroid. Grip was plentiful but there was still scope for silly mistakes.
There was a very strong entry of Class 8 specials (12 out of 28), four Beetles (3 out of them 1300s) and four X90s, one of which was supercharged. In Class 7, I was running with Matt Robson and his enthusiastic tribe in the Rickman Ranger and a pair of Marlins.
After admiring the recovery vehicles, we set off on time. The
organising team had done a very thorough job of marking out the sections and
providing directions throughout the woods.
The Beast of Bonyalva lived up to its name and I couldn’t
get off the restart line among the tree roots. A similar thing happened on
Stoney but there it was rocky.
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| Class 8 winning Invader buggy of Ross and Roger Hancock |
I prefer surprises.
If I had taken up Cap’n Cowling on his kind offer, I would
probably have been terrified. I could hear Dave Haizelden in attack mode and then
what my aunt would call an “omnibus silence”. Ben Tonkin in his Rangie had to
be summoned to tow Dave. That can’t be right I thought.
Dave Ball came down after a good look with a very thoughtful
expression muttering something about Dave H being beached out and sideways but then he got up okay once the course was clear. And hadn’t Dave H cleared it? Did they mean he got air?
I saw some rough stone steps near the top, what might have
been the faces of Ben Tonkin and Simon Oates gesticulating to keep left and
then I hit a bump and went right. The offside front tyre crashed into a tree
stump and there was a great rush of air from a burst tube - my first ever front
wheel puncture!
With quite a bit of help, I got back on track and changed
the wheel at the top for a spare rear. The Arkley-MG has 15” wheels on the front
and 14” on the rear but the rolling diameters not that different. The main
aggravation was finding the handle for the scissor jack. It’s in the boot
somewhere. The fancy hydraulic lift that Adrian Booth engineered for the rear
doesn’t slot onto the front. I could find that easily.
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| Roger Teagle fettles the ex Steve Ball UVA Fugitive while Matt and Lenny Robson look on |
Fortunately, Team Robson were on hand and Matt obliged me by diving in with his trolley jack.
Right Turn Clyde was something of a social occasion. Arthur Vowden
was on the start line and fellow Old Callestickian Garrick Royle was observing further
up. His video of me made everything look so easy. A new career in Hollywood
beckons. The camera can lie!
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| The queue for Bonyalva Steep, this time with a deviation for some of us. |
After the special timed test and the lunch stop, we revisited
some of the earlier sections, many of which were spiced up with restarts and
deviations depending on class.
There was a banterous pause while Tom Powell sorted out not
just an ignition issue but also a lazy fuel pump on his KPS special. I love the
throttle body inlet stubs on the Ford Cross Flow. They remind me of the exhaust
stubs on a Supermarine Spitfire.
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| Craig Allen and Sam O'Dwyer in their 1300cc Beetle had only dropped 2 points at this point |
Bonyalva Steep had a deviation for Class 7 and you could
almost get bellied out at the top, which I avoided. However, Team Robson came
to a halt with a leaf spring stuck on a tree stump, which took some sorting out. Quote
of the day was from his daughter who said, “Let’s get out and look at daddy’s
failure!”
It must be great to have support from your family.
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| The Marlin of Steve Ball was an effective car and driver combo, coming in 2nd in class |
I was particularly pleased with my restart on Main Road.
There were 3 lines in varying difficulty. The Class 7 one was in the middle and
my nearside front wheel was right up in the air. I did something right, though,
and got away! I wonder what I did?
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| It was first time out for Ray Ferguson and Trevor Wood in ray's nicely turned out MR2 based special |
A quick chat with Ray Ferguson revealed that he’d bent a
lower nearside wishbone on his splendid MR2 based Class 8 special. This was his
first event in this machine and he said he reckoned it needed more ground
clearance. He finished though and said that it still steered pretty well!
The approach to the final section was an adventure in itself
and the Tonkin brothers wanted to liven things up a bit. Many of us had
achieved some great climbs during the day, largely due to the dry conditions. Ben
and Ryan had found some mud on Colvase Long and by means of some red canes and
a shorter run up directed us into a muddy trench that scuppered many a class 8
and me. But not Steve Ball in his Marlin (he gave it a lot of beans apparently)
or Groover Groves who aced it in his Troll.
Afterwards I had another good look at the blown X90 of Brian
Hampson. Engineered with Dave Turner, this machine whined quite a lot but
climbed quite a lot, too. They were one point off the class winner so very good
for first time out.
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| Under the bonnet of the blown X90 |
The jury is still out on my new rear tyres. They haven’t seen
much mud. Mind you, pressure washing the car at home that evening, I found a
chunk of wood wedged between the wheel and the cover. It still held air but I had to
professional tyre fitter to sort that out.
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| Still holding air! |
It was great to chat to my mud brothers and sisters again. This was just the sort of event to we needed. You could feel yourself getting back into it as the day went on, although bursting a front tube the way I did – and so only on – was very disconcerting. However, Dave Ball said Gemma hit the headlining inside their Beetle on Love You One Time and Dave Haizelden said it felt as if he was going to tip over backwards! We all got air even with a puncture...
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