Claggy Clee

Golf Gti driver Michael Collins won a Clee Hills that was heavily handicapped against class eight. It was a sticky event, with everyone having to cope with deep ruts but the Class eights had some tough re-starts and alternative routes as well.

Falcon Class winners - (left) Michael Leete's Beetle stands all alone at the back of the field while it waits it turn at Hungerford. (right) Peter Manning checking out his Midget in the queue for Round Oak which was later cancelled for his class.
(left) Bill Rosten squelches off the line at Adstone. (right) Dick Glossop pictured on his unsuccessful  attack on the left hander at Hungerford

There had been a fair amount of rain the week before the trial, but the weather was warm enough to ensure there was no snow this year. Cars run in class order on The Clee and Stuart Harrold and Chris Phillips led the field away from The Boyne Arms in Burwarton near Bridgenorth in Shropshire. As the rest of the field followed the more privileged (or is it disadvantaged?) had Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason’s brother Tony thrust a microphone under their noses as he interviewed them for a Discovery Channel program that will be shown some time in the summer.

Farlow was first on the agenda. It had not been used for three years, as it wasn’t included the last time the event was run because of PR problems with the occupier of the house at the bottom. The section is a straight, muddy blind, cutting off a hairpin on the tarmac road. Grip was quite a problem for the early numbers and Stuart Harrold, Nigel Moss and Mike Chatwin all floundered on the lower reaches in their Trolls. At least they got further than David Thompson who didn’t make the start when he couldn’t get the ex-David Alderson machine fired up and had to stay at home in Kettering. The ruts became deeper with the passing of each car but later numbers with sufficient ground clearance found plenty of grip and most of the Class One’s cleaned the section.

There was a long road section of over 20 miles to the next hill, an even muddier section with yet more deep ruts. This had never been used for car trials before, although bikes had used it in the 50’s and 60’s. Most of the class eights came out the top of this one, but Stuart Harrold ground to a halt again and so did Tony Rothin in the Cannon Alfa. Crews in the other classes really struggled and Terry Ball was the only saloon to gain a clear. The Escorts all hated this hill, grounding out in the deep ruts by the left hander and causing a big queue to build up while they were dragged out. The Class fours didn’t fare much better and most of them under-steered into the bushes immediately after the start line, including Giles Greenslade and Richard Peck. When Richard backed out his Beetle looked decidedly lopsided and he retired, limping home to Derbyshire with a suspected broken torsion bar. Clerk of the Course Simon Woodhall was in attendance and he decided to cancel the hill for the remaining classes, leaving class four to run last on the road. Michael Leete made the penultimate ascent and he trickled through the mud at the start, staying in the ruts and slowly building momentum, blasting through the deep stuff at great speed before the clinging mud sucked him to a stop just short of the section ends board.

Bill Rosten had problems on the following road section. A lot of mud had been sucked into the engine compartment as he backed out of Round Oak and the alternator had stopped charging. The descent to the start of Adstone was pretty rutty and there was no going back if you changed your mind! The section didn’t present too many problems and neither did Rattlinghope or Gatten’s Gamble. They were all nice long sections though, with some absolutely fabulous views on what was now a clear day.

The views continued on the run over The Long Mynd with another long section before Harton Wood, which had to be tackled on road pressures after Pete Hart and his crew had leapt out in the road to do a diff test. There was another delay at Hugerford, one of the highlights of The Clee. This presented Mike Jones and John Sargeant with a lot of problems as they tried to get competitors queued up off the main road. The section is quite hard to turn into and drivers were allowed to swing into the road if they wished. The class eights didn’t have any problems at the bottom but they had a tough re-start just before the hump at the top and very few could get away. As the field went through so the bottom became very badly cut-up and it became difficult to get round the corner at all. It caught out both Dave Sargeant and Dick Glossop in their Beetles. Dave got around the corner at the expense of quite a bit of body damage while Dick just couldn’t get round at all. The character of the section had changed a lot since it was last used as the trees edging the gully had been felled and the section itself had become very muddy and cut up by the work vehicles. There were a few rocks remaining though and both Ian Ramsey and Neil Bray punctured. Hungerford also saw the end of Bill Rosten’s day when he retired with a broken Hardy Spicer joint.

Longville was nice and easy if you didn’t have any restarts; although it was all too much for Emma Flay’s Escort and she retired. The class eight’s had to re-start of course and only a couple got away cleanly, including Adrian Marfel and Mike Pearson in his Dellow Replica. The class eight handicap was hammered home when they diverted to Majors Leap while the rest of the field tackled the hairpin at Ippkins Rock. None of the class eights got beyond the ten marker while over at Ippkins around half the entry emerged without penalty, the right-hand hairpin causing the demise of the remainder.

The Clee’s traditional stopper, The Jenny Wind came next, despite some PR problems with the householder at the bottom. The club had tried to minimise the disturbance by erecting a huge tarpaulin to provide a visual screen and contain the flying dirt from spinning wheels. Class eight had a re-start at the eight marker, which slowed them down and the leaders only got as far as the five. Adrian Marfel was in the lead in his rear engined rail, a couple of marks ahead of Tony Young. Carl Talbot had been going well in the Morris Trialsmaster and would have been level with Adrian but for a fail on the first special test. Terry Ball came to The Jenny Wind with a clean sheet in his class six Beetle, as did Paul Allaway in his Astra, Michael Collins in his Gti and Terry Coventry in the AX, albeit the class ones were aided by Round Oak being cancelled for their class. All these clean sheets were blown to the wind here but Paul Allaway went that bit further to take the lead of the trial.

Harley Bank was a few hundred yards up the road. A lovely long blind up through the woods for the lower classes, although things were spiced up for seven and eight with a sharp left hander that proved impossible and an eight was the best anyone could muster. Even without the diversion Harley was pretty tough unless you had a lot of ground clearance and a fair amount of power to blast through the mud and ruts.

Talking of mud and ruts Simon Woodhall made sure a class eight wouldn’t win overall by sending them up Meadowley which was very slippery after all the rain. He reckoned without Adrian Marfel though, who actually made it to the top but the eight lost on the hairpin at Harley Bank dropped him out of overall contention as the field made it’s way back to Burwarton for the final sections within the Boyne estate with Paul Allaway in the overall lead by one mark. They were running last car on the road by now, after stopping to help David Haizelden who had mechanical problems. They had a great run on the last section called Forsters Fright but lost the lead to Michael Collins after getting a fail on the final special test.

So a class one emerged victorious with Michael Collins dropping 15 in his Golf Gti. He was one mark ahead of Terry Coventry on 16, the same score as Michael Leete but the Beetle driver had a much slower special test time. Adrian Marfel was best class eight but with their extra sections, restarts, alternative routes and high tyre pressures he could only manage ninth overall. Clive Kalber won class three on special test times after finishing on equal points with Paul Eamer.

The 2002 Clee will probably be a talking point for some time. In particular Were the class seven and eights to heavily handicapped. Perhaps they were, perhaps they weren’t. At the end of the day organiser Simon Woodhall is a class eight driver so he knew what they could or couldn’t do. It was unusual for class one to do so well and there’s no doubt that cancelling the muddy Round Oak helped them. Me, I thought it was a great event, but perhaps I am just a shade biased! 

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