Engine Punk

For us the course closing car was never far away So Binky and I couldn’t manage to repeat our performance from last year but we still had a great event. It was a difficult trial and by the time we got to the sections the already wet conditions had been churned up quite badly. There were a couple of hills that we cleaned that were so difficult we were euphorically elated when we cleared them. And those feelings lasted for a long time afterwards. Having replaced all the joints in the steering linkage and also the central idler bearing by the time of this year’s Exeter , Rob recently had the toe-in re-adjusted and now rates the steering as good instead of vague. His regular car is an MX-5 so he has a good benchmark. Backalong, the MCC used to swap the order of starts around – the others being Cirencester and Plusha Services in Cornwall - but since 2013 Popham has always been the latest starting point. On the Exeter 2015, we thought this affected our performance. T...

New tyres for the Allard J1 make Binky very happy After our encouraging result in the 2014 Exeter, Binky and I were looking forward to the Land's End Trial even more than ever. Binkers had been unhappy with the front tyres for some time and managed to get a good deal on some Pirelli Cinturatos the week before the trial. These were slightly narrower than the Bridgestones that we'd used before and continued to use on the back. This is the new windscreen wiper system - no rusty allen keys wrapped with wire for us anymore On the train up to Andover from Liskeard I had tread problems of my own - the sole on one of my old frank Thomas motocross boots began to come away. I've had them since 1987 so they've lasted well. I think being quietly cooked in the footwells of the Allard hasn't done them much good - I left my previous pair of walking boots next to my Rayburn for a winter and they just fell apart soon afterwards. Once at Binky Villas, there was nothing else...