New Start Venue
With the Cross House closed it
meant the Allen Team had to find a new start venue, coming up with The
Bull Inn at Hinton which proved a popular choice. It did confuse one or
two though, who had problems finding the route to Tog Hill, but all was
well and everyone cleared this nice starter hill.
Traditional Hills
Bitton Lane didn't have tyre
pressure limits for its restart on polished stones. It didn't cause many
problems apart from Class Five, where four of the seven didn't get away.
Everyone had to restart on Little Uplands which proved tough on Class One,
where only Dave Haizelden (Golf) and Nick Cleal (Peugeot 205) got off the
line.
As ever Guys Hill was a tough
challenge for Classes Seven and Eight where they had their usual restart
on a mixture of polished stones and tree roots. This left only Duncan
Stephens, Andrew Rippon, Mal Allen and Murray Montgomery-Smith clean in
Class Seven and Josh Moss, Dudley Sterry, Mike Chatwin, Charlie Knifton,
Carl Talbot and Russell Clarke in Class Eight.
Ubley Woods Sections
After a tree rooty Travers
competitors tackled four sections and a special test at Bristols Ubley
Woods venue. Although muddy there was nowhere near the usual amount of
clag and things flowed smoothly. The Class Eight restart on Ubley Woods
Four sorted the red category out and only Josh Moss (Gregory Special) and
Carl Talbot (Morris Trialsmaster) were clean going to lunch. They were
joined by another eight clean sheets, including the Model T based Board
Racer of David Golightly.
Burledge
There were four traditional
hills after lunch, starting with Burledge. This had been closed to
motorised traffic following last years event. However, Pete Hart and his
team had worked a miracle and got permission for the hill to be open for
the event.
The second special Test took
place on the way to the section. With so many clean sheets this was going
to be decisive in determining the results. Carl Talbot was fastest here
and coupled with his time on the Ubley Woods test was in overall lead of
the trial.
Burledge started just up the
track, beginning where the old section finished before the ruts were
filled in! It was all about stopping in the right place at the restart.
About 25% of the entry didn't, although it didn't trouble the leading
contenders.
Mill Lane was enjoyable but not
too problematical, although David Golightly retired his wonderful car
here. This was a shame as David had his clutch fail on the VSCC's Cotswold
Trial on Saturday. Undeterred he returned home to Grimsby to make a
repair. An exercise that involved removing both the gearbox and back axle,
returning to Bristol on Sunday morning.
Big Uplands
Only class eight had the
pleasure of tackling Big Uplands as water erosion had created some deep
gulleys. It was a tough one, even for the specials, and decided the result
of the trial when Carl Talbot failed at the seven, putting Duncan Stephens
in the lead of the trial.
John Walker
The Allen's finale was the
wonderful John Walker, tackled in the dusk for later numbers as there were
a few delays extracting those unfortunate to puncture.
With all the clean sheets there
were a lot of hopefuls at the finish. After the ST times were taken into
account it was Duncan Stephens (Dutton Melos) who emerged the winner,
followed by Josh Moss (Gregory Special) and John White (1300 Beetle).
Everyone enjoyed the trial which was a credit to the effort and experience
of Pete Hart and his team from the Bristol Club.