The Inaugural John Aley Trial 2021

I think the new white wheels really suit the Candidi Provovatores Allard

My John Aley trial experience began with a rail journey to Andover near where Binky lives. Ever since we broke a perch bolt on the 2018 Lands End, he’d been chasing down parts for his Allard J1 to sort out the damage and engineer a better solution in keeping with the character of the car. At last! The only thing he needed to do on the day of our departure was drill holes for split pins for the hub retaining nuts on the freshy rebuilt rear axle and we’d be off!

Imagine his disappointment to discover that the headlamps and front sidelamps didn’t work.

Imagine, then, my disappointment to discover not only that but the prospect of missing the trial and having to make an alternative journey back home to Cornwall.

However, maximise the positive. If Binky waggled the headlamp relay, the headlamps worked. This was regardless of the headlamp switch position.

I tried a similar waggling technique and succeeded in stopping the indicators from operating.

Now we were getting somewhere.

We soon concluded that we needed was a new wiring loom for an Allard J1. The lead time and cost, however, were prohibitive.

We developed a cunning plan and decided that we could make one. We didn’t think we could make new switches, however, so Binky went off to a motor factors while I had a go at restoring headlamps, sidelamps and indicators.

Binky and Mrs Binky have had the builders in so we hade to dig it out to get to his Allard J1

It didn’t feel like we were going to fix them in time. It wasn’t an entirely hopeless situation. All we could do was try because Binky’s motor factor must have been pretty good. We had what we needed.

Our Baldrickian scheme to make a wiring loom eventually worked with the help of Binky’s neighbour across the road. He had some handy electrical tools for fault finding and continuity testing. Wiring is not my forte but at last we were cooking with electrons.

Regular followers of the adventures of the Candidi Provocatores may remember that the old dip switch was under the driver’s leg. We moved the new de luxe toggle switches to the dashboard so they were easier to find and operate. They weren’t illuminated but nothing on the dash ever lit up, not even the thoughtfully provided map reading lamp.

So far, crew members have used overnight competition events as part of their zen training in spatial awareness.

I may have blinded oncoming traffic when the windscreen wipers on some occasions. The new toggle switches were a great improvement.

We set off at midnight for a 03:36 departure from Barley Mows Farm Shop near Chard. Running as number 186 in the main trial, we were 3 hours and 6 minutes behind the first competitor who’d set off at half past midnight.

We had a good chinwag with Brian Partridge and Richard Nikel over restorative bacon baps, tea and cake. They were number 188 but they were soon well ahead of us.

There are many shiny new parts on the Allard including these improved perch bolts

The Allard is quite slow between sections and has big tyres that hold a lot of air. Even with a new pump designed for pumping up offroad Land Rovers, we gradually slipped down the running order.

Incurring a penalty for early arrival has rarely been a problem for us.

The John Aley trial was a mixture of Exeter and Lands End Trial hills with a few new ones thrown in. It commemorated one of the leading lights in the Motor Cycling Club. I began marshalling with John Aley and found him full of enthusiasm, wit and insight. He was also the man behind Aleybars, competition rollcages that saved the life of hundreds of racers over the years. He also had an omnipresent quality that meant he could pop up anywhere during a trial. I hope the John Aley Trial becomes a permanent fixture in the motorsport calendar. I thought the format and timing were excellent.

The first hill was fresh to us. Green Knap Lane was only 2 miles from the start. Underdown was next and this old friend from the Exeter was a further 6 miles away. Underdown consisted of two separate sections for this event but a failure and a recovery on the first one meant a queue on the approach, which is renown for its roughness and inclination (oo er). Binky fell over in the mud doing his travelling marshal thing on the queueing. Conditions were dry but could still catch you out.

Clinton is very popular this time of year in the daylight

Normans Hump and Clinton were next. By now the sun was coming up. We were running about 30 minutes late and the course closing Freelander was already breathing down the necks of tail end competitors. We met the photographer behind one of the best smudges ever of us smoking the tyres on Wooston Steep and were able to congratulate Simon Oakes on getting away from the restart on Clinton which looked horrible in the daylight.

It was also good to see Lee Peck, who’d helped us resolve halfshaft issues in the past. He’d been down to help replace the starter motor on Nigel Jones’ Kraken. This is the first one produced. I’d encountered it before when I joined the Tortilla Chips and bounced for Brain Partridge. Lee sold it Nigel but couldn’t bear to see him become a non-starter despite the small matter of about 200 miles. Later reports indicated that Nigel was on for a Gold so must have appreciated Lee’s after sales service!

Lee also said that the Allard is now Class 5 eligible and would run in Class 2 if Binky put it on cross plies. Let’s see how that plays out, especially in view of what happened later (Oo! Plot spoiler alert!) but I am getting ahead of myself.

Peter Gribble and his Marlin were Stretes ahead

At Stretes the queue stretched almost onto the highway. The start line was proving awkward. It looked as if someone had dumped a load of stone scalpings there but as we drew closer it became apparent that competitors were choosing to start towards the right. Then they would slither into a massive rut. Any efforts to get away only made it bigger.

Binky played a blinder by going left and straddling it so we had no problems.

Core Hill special test was against the clock and the usual format.

Usually, we only got to see these sections in a dawning light but we were enjoying scenery we’d never seen before. Dorset and East Devon looked especially fine and I latterly wore my shades as it was very sunny.

Conditions were generally dry so we were reluctant to go very low on tyre pressures. The Allard was not struggling for grip anywhere, although some sections were a tight squeeze and corners, like the bend on Underdown, had to be approached with care.

At some point, our indicators stopped working so we had to resort to hand signals and sometimes gestures if our fellow road users had forgotten their Highway Code.

Ross Cookman in the TMR special gives us an unambiguous hand signal

Tillerton Steep had a restart for Class 8s. A queue had built up but this was expected and the marshals were well organised. We were pleased to see Dave Symons still going after his electrical failure on the approach to Normans Hump. He said he daren’t switch his engine off now that he’d got it running again. No restart for us but the restart box looked horrible as we drove over it. We only managed to get away from it on one occasion.  It was much drier than usual but still a challenge. Binky was very pleased to clean the section even without the restart this time.

The route card foxed me on the way to Ilsington for Simms. The 0.4 miles after Drumbridges roundabout happened very quickly! Fortunately, as a pan-dimensional being, I soon twigged that we were not entering the village from the west as we usually do on the Exeter Trial but from the east. However, this detour meant that we were now the last car of all.

Nothing was going to put us off having a pasty and tea and cake at the village hall in Ilsington, however. We imbibed and imbibed hard. Catering opportunities had not appeared since the start of the trial and we were now well over an hour behind our planned time.

One thing we had to do, though, was fix a broken front mudguard support. This had snapped en route somewhere and by means of a spanner and some cable ties we were able to make.... very little difference.  

Time was moving on but the marshals at Simms were still happy to see us. The section looked rough and well used but without a restart we had a good climb.

When we’d set off in the dark, we’d felt out of practice and not quite in the groove of long-distance overnight trialling. By now, it was coming back and I was getting used to the route card again. After Simms, we had to turn right instead of left but on the way to Gawton, which was a new section to me, it was easy to lose our way.

From an industrial archaeology point of view, Gawton looked really interesting. I shall have to return for a better look. It felt quite narrow in the Allard, although this might have been summer vegetation. Compared to their hedges’ winter plumage, the sections didn’t feel so wide.

The Blain Boys in their Jago Jeep have a chat with the closing car marshal on the approach to Barretts Mill. These guys had already suffered a puncture at speed on the M25, which lead to a screaming diff due to the different rolling radius. They then changed the diff on the hard shoulder but this had taller gearing and their clutch was suffering. They still finished though!

Barretts Mill I had done before with the Arkley on a Tamar Trial run by the Launceston and North Cornwall Motor Club. By now, we were not reducing our tyres pressures so much as conditions were dry and stony.

After some more fun and games with the route card we managed to lose the course closing car. Was it a right turn at a staggered junction? Or was it a crossroads?

The next batch of competitors await their turn at Warleggan. 202 is Jon White in his green Marlin. 197 is the X90 of Mark White

Fortunately, I could fall back on my extra special powers and we arrived at Warleggan to join the happy throngs of people awaiting their turn.

This was another well organised hill and I only found out later that there was cake! However, an awful lot of cars were coming back down having failed to proceed, Class 8 specials among them.

Like Tillerton, Warleggan usually has a restart for us to fail miserably on but not today. However, it was very rough where the restart boxes usually sit and to keep enough momentum to crash over the surprisingly slippery rocky surface you had to apply some beans to the loud pedal.

Imagine our disappointment (not that again!) when there was a series of really loud clicks as we crashed over the steps of rock. I thought we’d broken the freshly rebuitd axle again but the old warhorse struggled on and we cleaned it.

208 is the Scimitar of William Moffat. 185 is Nigel Jones with the first ever Kraken, a crackin' good car.

Binky knows his car and knew something was up. Muttering about the possibilities and various strategies we might employ, we negotiated roundabouts in a roundabout way, sometimes more than once, before I worked out what the route card actually meant instead of actually said. We escaped from Bodmin and found asylum in Withielgoose.

Who should we see there marshalling but Liam Hartley. “You won’t need to bother with tyre pressures here!” he declared, as I lepat out with my gauge. “I drove my Peugeot up here!”

That must have been pretty bumpy for the poor little car but he wasn’t spinning us a yarn, there was plenty of grip.

Trewollack special test was very close to where some friends of mine live. They’d never seen a classic trial before and are now fascinated by it. We didn’t have time to chat though because the start line marshal began counting us down on arrival and we had to average 15 mph over approximately 0.8 miles. It was rough for those sorts of speeds and when we (eventually) got to the end our time sounded rather impressively long.

We await to see how many penalty points we incurred for being a second above the set time. Or maybe we might have been below it…. yeah right.

We exchanged the course closing car for the Skoda of Mark James until Newquay. A quick refuel for your brave boys and the old car at Perranporth and all we had to do was a pair of restarts at sunny Blue Hills.

By now we had raised our tyre pressures from the usual 12 or 14 psi to 18.

Binky showed no signs of being out of practice on the restart on Blue Hills 1 and we even managed to get our long old car to turn within the embanked road.

It was beginning to dawn on us that we were in line for a Gold award if we could carry on like this. This section hasn’t posed any problems for us yet, so long as we can turn within the sunken sides of the track. The view from the start line looked different though. It’s no longer the straight blast up that I remember from spectating in the early 80s. It snakes left and right before the sharp left hander near the top.

On that first occasion when I spectated, conditions were also very dry and the dust acted as a kind of lubricant between the stones. The Allard seemed to find enough grip, though, and we made it round the tight bend to the restart box. Binky chose quite a low position in the box to use the Allard’s wheelbase to best advantage.

The start line marshal dropped his flag, Binks gave it some beans and that clicking noise came back. In fact, it was more of a loud snapping noise. Or perhaps a thud. Anyway, this time we didn’t go forward but stayed put with a mudguard hanging off.

What happened next?

I need to go to bed now but will continue the further adventures of Team Steampunk’s Candid Provocateurs very dreckly (or possible even sooner)