NEWS

A splendid day Trialling

Results can be found here. This is a write-up from Duncan Cartwright:

Having recently turned 14, our youngest Amelie has expressed an unbending desire to get behind the wheel of a proper car and do some Trials competitively, so I suggested she first take on navigator and chief bouncer on the Wessex Trial. This so she could watch ‘the master’ at work and enhance her education before taking the wheel herself. Therefore, the trusty (and put-upon) family Riley Monaco was pressed into service once more. The forecast for the day looked very agreeable so we were slightly surprised to encounter the early morning mist sitting on the Mendips when we arrived at event HQ. Scrutineered and breakfasted we were ready to go and were the first car to leave with our allocated no 1 – the Trial being run with hills attempted consecutively in number order. By the time we got to our first hill (expertly navigated to by Amelie) the sun had started to burn off the mist and all was looking rosy. The initial hill was a very steep but short climb within Binegar Quarry and I was not expecting a clean ascent as we comprehensively failed this last year, however, maximum revs before dropping the clutch shot us up the incline and we were amazed to find ourselves at the top. For the next hill, ‘the master’ decided to give Amelie a lesson in what happens when you hit a marker and when you miss a gate – two important lessons in one hill is quite efficient teaching I think. Onward we went, and despite a detour around the lanes of Chewton Mendip we remained the first car to arrive at hills 3 & 4 on the wonderful tunnel-like byway up Burlage Hill. This section was very rocky and greasy toward the top where ‘the master’ demonstrated how to take two attempts to get off the stop and restart line. Actually, we did quite well as the hill became more and more slippery as more cars went up causing a bit of a backlog and then ultimately a redirection for the remainder of the entry, which was a shame but couldn’t be helped. A novelty of the Trial was to have a timed section, but one where we had to set an average speed of 7.5 mph. This was great fun, but you needed to quickly work out your timing to get it right. Amelie’s direction on the stopwatch meant we were able to slow it right down before the end to get the timing bang on and make up some points! st Having benefitted from being 1 up the hill we then discovered a disadvantage, and this was to be the ‘sweeper’ on Hill 6 – a very, very steep byway strewn with rocks. Having failed this last year ‘the master’ decided that the ‘hell for leather’ approach was required. This approach did indeed do the trick and we scrabbled our way up the steep track in the process sweeping several large rocks out of the way, one of which with our rear mounted petrol tank. On our return to the start we discovered that petrol tanks don’t like sweeping rocks, with the inevitable drip coming from a ding near the seam. Fortunately, we stopped where there were lots of marshals and enthusiastic locals who went looking for chewing gum and other pasty substances, in a short time however some chemical metal appeared by magic from a kind marshal on adjacent hill and the leak temporarily halted. Our patrons Phil and Jan Diffey arrived during the operations and set up their deck chairs nearby to enjoy the show and provide some commentary – good on them – what more encouragement does any competitor need! After lunch, the afternoon sections were more relaxed being mainly on grass and in pleasing hilltop, orchard and woodland surroundings, with another brief byway thrown in for luck. For the afternoon ‘the master’ decided to make no silly errors, the main tuition being done in the morning and we lost only a few marks and even got off the compulsory stop and restart. The fuel tank fix prevailed and we handed in our scorecard in good time. The team did the calcs and crunched the numbers to reveal the winners and while there were no awards for us we were surprised that we were not that far away (and we were not last!). I suppose next year ‘the master’ will have to hand over the reins to the student.