October 2000 - Part 1 Click here to View Full Pahe in a New Window

What a Scamp!

Roger Dudley wins Falcon's September Surprise Autotest

There was an excellent entry of 16 cars for Falcon’s "September Surprise", the club’s penultimate autotest of the season. Several of the clubs veteran’s were absent, but they were more than made up for by some hard charging "new blood", complete with very interesting motor cars. Several drivers were from Bedford car club, who aren’t running grass autotests at the moment. They included Peter Barker and Kiron Whatley, both Mini mounted and returning to Upper Caldecote for the second time, and Sam Barker who was sharing a Mini with Kiron.

Roger Dudley has been driving his Dutton Melos in the local PCT’s for a while but had bought along something rather different to Upper Caldecote, a Scamp. This is a kit car, loosely based on a Mini Moke that Roger had used a while back for tarmac autotests. Not to be outdone Andrew Dudley entered his wonderful Escort Mk 1 rally car that had not really been driven in anger for the best part of a decade. Then we had no less than three Imps competing. Richard Tompkins had his familiar yellow car, Ed Nikel had his newly rebuilt tan example and Paul Whittinngton an absolutely immaculate blue Imp, for what I understand was a first event for both car and driver.

Then I must make a special mention of Julie Ackers who had made the longest journey to the event, all the way from Australia! Julie is of course Mike Hayward's sister who emigrated down under a few years a go and was returning for a family visit and a drive in Mikes Escort.

With Alan Davies still recovering from his operation the event was again organised by Mike Furse who laid on some great new tests, using the field "north-south" rather than the usual "east-west". Despite still being a bit stiff Alan came along to help out on the day to see Roger Dudley take an immediate lead in the Skamp that he was not to loose all day. A trio of hard chargers in some very different cars chased him. Keith Pettit had a fantastic morning in his Classic Trial prepared "Frogeye" Sprite to head Richard Tompkins (Imp) Neil Bray (Mini) and Andrew Dudley, who provided wonderful entertainment as he threw the well used Mk1 around the tests.

Richard Tompkins managed to bet ahead of Keith Pettit in the afternoon to finish an excellent second overall behind Roger Dudley. By then Richard was sharing his car with Ed Nikel whose tan Imp had lost all it’s oil pressure but still managed a third in class behind Neil Bray. Paul Whittington was best novice in yet another Imp, an excellent day for the Linwood machines.

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