Classical Gas
www.classictrials.co.uk
October 2004 - Part 1
Well perhaps not really a surprise! Owen Turner stormed to FTD in his Mini on a very hot day at Upper Caldecote. A great achievement considering he had been up all night rallying in North Wales where he had the misfortune to retire his rally car with broken suspension. Owen was one of several competitors from the Watling club which is merging with Falcon.
Click on the thumbnails for a bigger picture. email Michael if you would like a CD more than 100 pictures in high resolution. Click here to go to the report or click here for the results.
Bob Tatum leaning the his Fiat Panda into a corner. Brian Alexander would be proud of how well he does in this car with its dimunitive 750cc engine.
Clive and Andrew Gladwin in their Metro. Clive set the early pace.
Andrew Dudley was master of class C/D again, a joy to watch his car control.
Arnold Lane was fast and won the FWD class but it was Owen Turner who won the class.
David Manning was second in class A.
Jackie Dudley was ahead of cousin Laura in the morning but slipped back in the afternoon.
James Kay was best novice in his Peugeot
Lean baby lean, but Keith Pettit couldn't keep up with Andrew Dudley on Peter Manning's fast tests.
Laura Dudley received a double penalty on the first test but soon got back in her rythem to win the Production Class.
Laureen Pettit getting faster in only her second autotest.
Martin Cheshire in his very tidy Peugeot.
Michael Hopprich had to change his Escorts clutch after the last Autotest but had the misfortune to get a double wrong course.
Michael Leete put his foot down a bit more this time and was doing quite well until the tests with reversing came along.
Mike Turner co-drove the winning Mini.
Owen Turner receiving his trophy for FTD from Clerk of the Course Peter Manning. Owen had been rallying in North Wales the night before!
Richard Atherton in his flying Maestro won class B.
There were 18 entries for Falcon’s final Autotest of the year at Upper Caldecote. The entry was boosted by quite a few entries from the Watling club which intends to merge with Falcon. Peter manning was Clerk of the Course this time and laid out some fast tests in his double test format where two cars are running identical tests at the same time. This adds interest and as one leads into the other rather than being side by side there is no danger of running into the other car.
Clive Gladwin set the early pace in his Metro with the fastest time on test one and second fastest to Mike Turner on test two. By tests three and four Owen Turner had started to shake of the fatigue of spending the night rallying in Wales and stamped his authority on the event, setting a pair of fastest times to put him into the lead of the event which he was to retain to the end. Both David Manning and Arnold Lane had slow starts and at lunch the order was Owen Turner – Mike Turner – Roger Dudley.
After the break tests five and six changed things around as they incorporated some reversing for all accept the Production class. Arnold did well on these tests and jumped up the order to second behind the flying Owen. Andrew Dudley was fast here as well promoting him to third overall ahead of Roger who clearly doesn’t like reversing!
The final pair of tests didn’t change the top three but David Manning got ahead of Roger Dudley to be fourth fastest overall. Roger was fifth ahead of Mike Turner who along with Clive Gladwin had slipped back on the reversing tests.
