SEPTEMBER TRIAL REPORT

Wet and Dry, it’s exciting stuff.

Apparently it's been the wettest summer since Noah took up woodwork and built a boat, but the day we went trialing at JPR Towers the sun shone all day, so how come a few people ended up soaked? I'll get to that later.

It's always an interesting trial at John's place, the ground is good and it's a pleasure to drive against 'natural' terrain rather than the man made waste lands of old mines and quarries, even if they are returning to nature. Basically we used two very different areas, the trees and the river. Both were difficult areas to drive and equally difficult to describe section by section, so I'm not even going to try beyond a general description, and one was certainly wetter than the other.

In the trees the ground is fairly level and on a good day reasonably dry, so luckily for us the rain came on Saturday when Les Price and Alan 'Wally' Waller set the sections out, which made the ground very slippery, but not impossible which it might have been if we had been driving in the rain. When I say it's "fairly level" I mean there's no mountainside climbs such as we have at most sites, it's still rough and people were failing the climbs because the ground was rock hard with a slimy surface so traction was at a premium, big hill climbs would have been 'fun'. And just to make things difficult there's a small drainage ditch running through the trees that made a sticky mud bath. I think we had the first four sections in the trees, where we saw some classic trialing. People were getting stuck and lost, sliding into trees and hitting canes from start to finish. But every section of the day has some clears or ones.

The sections were very well laid out and made us work hard as we turned up on side slopes that had us sliding into trees and canes. If we were lucky it was a tree and we could bounce off to clear another gate, or hook the roll cage onto it and spin around, hopefully to line ourselves up for the rest of the section.

I think this was the tactic Angus had in mind when he got the Range Rover jammed between trees and had to be rescued by chain saw. This time he lost the passenger side window, which makes a change from the usual windscreen he ends up replacing. Anyway Angus, you don't need glass and heaters, real men suffer for their sport! It's also the fastest we've ever seen Dave Tomley move as he claimed salvage rights on the logs. But given the rises in fuel costs I don't expect he's the only one keen to get some free winter warmth.

The woods were also a very good place for the three new drivers to get the hang of trialing as well. There was little risk of coming to any grief in there, not that the prospect of coming to grief seemed a problem to any of them as they all drove the sections very well. Ben was driving Malcolm Whitbread's latest creation; a £200 leaf sprung Daihatsu Fourtrack with a roll cage and a set of cheap remould mud tyres. I've given up trying to keep track of Malcolm’s motors, but this one is a radical move. It didn't stop him from driving well though, a couple of 8's during the day knocked his score up but he did well, and Ben did ok as well. He hit a few canes, but he seemed to drive confidently.

Which is definitely a term you could use when describing the enthusiastic driving style of the other new drivers Kevin and Dylan. Apparently their motor is the first one built by Malcolm, and obviously Malc' had hit on the winning formula back then as the motor was performing impressively. Again, these two new drivers were hitting a few canes, but they had no trouble with the motor or the ground.

It's like every sport, practice and experience is the key to 'seeing the right line' for your motor, and even then it's not a guarantee of success.

After lunch we headed for the river bank, and things began to get really difficult.

Gravity was going to get us down the steep river banks, that wasn't the problem. Getting back up them was the problem. Even the first driver through was going to struggle with water making the vertical banks slippery, the later drivers were looking on in despair. Were our concerns real ones? No, not really, most of the wet sections had a clear, not many, but they were nearly all cleared by someone. Sections 5 and 8 in particular warrant a mention of Simon and Jo who cleared very difficult finishes on these sections.

Jo started the day driving his own motor along with Marc who's still bumming drives until the Scrapsu gets four more cylinders and a 1000% increase in horsepower. But Jo's V6 lost it's clutch master cylinder after one section so Jo drove Chris Spittle’s Muddler, well, he did on some sections and on others Jo thought he would give his own motor another chance, which was 'interesting' as he couldn't stop the bloody thing! And when he got jammed in some trees he had great fun trying to get out, but he still had a decent day.

Marc however got the deal of the day and drove my Flyer. I'm the first to admit it's not an easy thing to drive, but Marc soon got the hang of it and we had a close battle for the rest of the day which I eventually won by two points. It was good to watch someone else drive the Flyer, especially a good, confident driver like Marc who

drives to win. I'm very pleased about the way it handles, but I'm now 100% convinced that it lacks power, and Marc agreed. So it's getting a 3.5 V8.

We did persuade Les to alter a couple of gates on section 6, the 3 and 2 gates I think, to lessen the chance of someone getting drowned on a section. It's not usually a risk when trialing I know, but there was a ledge in the river bed and nobody was willing to wade in and see how deep it was. We did suggest throwing some of the small boys in, but their mothers objected. It looked deep, so Les made it safer. JPR was first off and scored 7 followed by a few more high scores, so nobody got to the hard bit until Huw scored 2 and showed that the climb out of the river across the tree roots could be driven. Tim Mackley and Chris Spittle scored 1's, which was very good, and exciting to watch. Then along came Tim Richards with Paul Morris as co pilot. Tim and Paul make guest appearances

about once a year when the diesel Bowler gets an airing. Tim is every bit as competitive as his dad, but as yet he hasn't got John's experience or sense of caution, he still drives the Bowler like it's stolen! Which is how it came to find its way into the river, on its passenger side alongside the tree. The water was halfway up the Bowler and instantly other drivers and spectators were in the freezing cold river hauling Tim and Paul up and out of the drivers side.

The water was deep enough to cover Paul completely as he was strapped into the bucket seat, but he managed to get his head above the water line without drinking too much river water. Thankfully there were no injuries, just a bunch of cold wet people laughing while they recovered the Bowler from its watery resting place. The picture of Paul quietly dripping is priceless; I reckon Tim should be buying him beers for many weeks to come after that. 

 So, that's about it. We had some great sections and watched some superb driving from a very mixed bunch of drivers, in an even bigger mix of motors. Some new, and some not driven by their usual drivers. Some of the clubs usual low scoring drivers like Matthew and Tim had a couple of high scores and wrecked an otherwise good day, and this trial wasn't going to allow mistakes, Les made sure of that. 

It was a great day; the trial was a great leveller. New drivers stood a chance of equalling experienced ones on some sections, and the old timers had to work hard to keep the points down.

Many thanks to Les, Wally, JPR, Linda, Jo Whitbread and everyone else who helped to make our day so much fun.

If I'm offering thanks for creating entertainment then Tim and Paul must get another mention, we need to see you guys a bit more often!