This year’s event was run to a familiar pattern. There were two starts, at Upton-on-Severn and Toddington, a ninety mile night run to breakfast near Derby and some familiar competitive sections before the Buxton finish. All the Falcons started from Toddington and we were led away at 03.09 by Mike and Sheila Furse in the Racecorp.
Scrutineering didn’t begin until about half an hour before the first car was due to start. There were no problems for the Falcons, even Neil Brays Skoda getting Alan Fosters nod of approval, without any discussion. Neil has rebuilt his engine during the summer and it now sports a rather magnificent Dellorto twin choke.
Simon Robson had Martin Sheppard in the passengers seat as Matt was away on holiday. Simon had replaced the rear suspension arms on the hard working Skoda since the last Autotest. He still plans to increase the ground clearance with some demon tweaks copied from Philip Mitchell, but ran out of time. Michael Leete had fitted a new transmission with a low diff over the summer. However, there was more interest in his passenger than the car, Natalie Rowland taking over the hot seat at the last minute when Simon Elves cried off again.
The other Falcon VW’s had something new in the transmission department as well. Alan Bellamy and Murray MacDonald also had low diffs with an 4.87 to 1 final drive ratio. All three had also fitted four planet “super diffs and/or a heavy duty side plate. This prevents flexing and keeps the crown-wheel and pinion properly in mesh.
Dave Nash was trialling the Skeetle for the first time. It was running in class eight. This seems a shame as in my opinion it could run in class seven as a Beetle with a modified body. No such quandary for Geoff Jackson’s Sprint, entered in class eight for its trials debut. Geoff was running in company with Reg Taylor in his RDT special. They looked very smart running together. Further down the field Mike Pearson and Clive Booth had their Geoff and Reg constructed Dellow Replicas. Clive’s now reconstructed after last years coming together with a Porsche on the Welwyn by-pass. Mike Pearson had Andrea Lane reading the route card in her classic debut.
Chris Bonnett was driving his Peugeot diesel in class one, despite the doubts I expressed in last months Classical Gas! However, he had cured the sagging rear suspension by fitting new torsion bars since the last autotest. John Parsons was another member who had been working on his car over the summer. Regular readers will remember that a suspension mounting pulled out of the chassis at the Stanbridge autotest. John had repaired and strengthened this and had clearly done something else as well as the car is riding a lot higher now.
Clough Wood was the first section. It was bone dry and presented no problems at all, was the whole trial going to be like this? Through Bakewell we went, turning off the A6 at Ashford for the run up to the Monsail Head Hotel, with its magnificent view of Putwell over the valley. Shortly we turned left, onto the track down to Litton Slack and a big queue, maybe it wasn’t going to so easy after all!
Mike Furse was the first Falcon to go, just as a fine drizzle started. He struggled for grip on the start line, but with some determined bouncing from Sheila they got the tyres to bite and built up speed. Past the A boards they went, then as the hill got steeper they started to lose grip, loosing momentum and coming to a halt before the corner.
The tactics were now clear. You needed plenty of power to get away from the line and never mind the wheelspin. Then you had to ease off, kill the wheel-spin and build maximum speed on the lower reaches to have sufficient momentum for where the gradient increased before the corner. The problem came just after the A boards where there was a little jink around a tree. This could throw you out of the ruts with disastrous consequences. However, lift off to much and you would lose your speed and certainly fail.
John Parsons had all this in mind when he dropped the clutch and used all the Westfield’s power to storm the hill. As Litton is a public road it’s a good job the constabulary weren’t out with their radar gun! Mike Pearson didn’t have any problems, neither did Neil Bray once he got to the start line. However, in the queue he saw one of the rear tyres had punctured so a quick change was necessary before he attempted the hill. Fred Gregory was next. He let the clutch out gently. The Dutton’s wheels started to spin but the car didn’t move. Fred gave it more welly and smoke started to pour off the tyres but the Dutton stayed put. Pete Stafford bounced frantically and away she crawled, slowly but surely building speed. By the A boards they were going like a rocket and Fred and Pete stormed easily out of the top.
Simon Robson and Martin Sheppard recorded a clean but Michael Leete ran out of steam before the summit and so did Geoff Jackson. Peter Mountain and Eric Prichard got away OK in their Skoda (which is for sale). By the A boards the motor was really on the cam and they flew out of the top, as did Stuart Cairney and Reg Taylor. By now it had started to rain and triple contender Murray MacDonald was cursing his luck, having purposely asked for a late number in the hope that the morning dew would have gone from Litton by the time he arrived. There was a very long queue and Murray and Hazel had plenty of time to admire the new fence between the approach road and drop to oblivion! It’s certainly comforting as you ease your way down the slippery slope. Having watched several other attempts Murray decided that just driving off the line wouldn’t work. So he dumped the clutch with five thousand on the clock and up he went.
Allan Bellamy, Colin Stevens and Owen Briggs all made it OK. I would have loved to have seen Owen’s type 4 engined Fugative storm the hill. Better still I would like to have had a go in it myself! Dave Nash was not so lucky. He got away OK but half way up there was a loud bang as he went over a bump and the Skeetle ground to a halt. Dave thought he had broken the diff, but quickly remembered the Skeetle was a Beetle not a Skoda, groped around and found it had jumped out of gear.
Then came a long road section, south down the A515, past the Moneystones section, to Excelsior. This was a real problem in the wet a few years ago but didn’t present any difficulty to Falcons in the dry, although Morgan expert Rob Wells, who was running with Peter Mountain, lost the sumpguard on his class three Volvo. After Excelsior the route climbed upwards towards the A53. You could see the top of the hills were actually in the clouds and that’s where classes 1 to 6 found Bareleg and Alan Davies. Further up the section Mike Hayward and Arnold Lane were running the re-start and they were all getting a little chilly after some five hours in the mist. At times it was so bad that Alan on the start lost site of the re-start and had to rely on his ears to know when to let competitors away.
Bareleg was not too difficult, but Corkscrew was more of a challenge for classes seven and eight. Clerk of the Course Lawrie Knight had positioned the re-start on a camber just before one of the hairpins. All the Falcons got to the top of the hill and enjoyed the experience even though they thought it very rough. Owen Briggs found the Fugative a real handful around the hairpins and Mike Furse was judged to have run back on the re-start.
The sun came out as soon as the route left Bareleg and it was another very long road section, via a special test at Old Long Hill, to the Marquis of Granby holding control. Most competitors were at least an hour and a half early here but the usual two hour wait soon got them back on schedule! Neil Bray found another puncture and didn’t have any spares left but decided to carry on. The Marquis was quite chaotic this year and there was a lot of pushing and shoving by determined queue jumpers. It would be nice to see some extra organisation here next year. However, all this was soon forgotten when Gerry Woolcott released the field in small groups for their attempt on Bamford.
Thankfully the startline wasn’t too difficult this year. Simon Woodall informed Murray that the Marquis delay was because each competitor was taking a minute and a quarter on the hill, plus time to clear the failures. The section was quite rough this year, especially in front of some of the concrete patches. But there was plenty of grip and most Falcons made it OK. Dave Nash was one of the unlucky ones, when the Skeetle jumped out of gear again. Alan Bellamy was enjoying his low ratio diff and made the climb on half throttle. Michael Leete enjoyed a similar experience, but had to stop before the top when he came across Brian Alexander stationary on the section, stuck behind an MG with a broken diff. Ken Green crediting both with a clean rather than a balk. Murray MacDonald was confident his Beetle would trickle up as well but with a triple at stake wasn’t taking any chances so gave it a good blast.
All the Skoda’s made the top OK but Peter Mountain was taking things gently, having twice broken his transmission on Bamford, once on his Morgan and once on the Skoda. Like everyone else he didn’t let the tyres down much but the motor came off the cam, when he slowed for one of the bumps, and he had to slip the clutch for the rest of the climb. Geoff Jackson’s Sprint had been going well up to now but he hit one of the bumps a bit to hard and the fan hit the radiator, piercing it and breaking two of the fans’ blades. He tried to get it going but even two cans of Radweld couldn’t fix it and he had to retire.
Then it was off to Haggside. Michael Leete was telling Natalie Rowland how the real trial was over now and that Haggside was just a blast and a piece of fun, when he remembered how David Alderson had lost his triple on the restart last year. So, it was down to 12 psi. Michael took the Beetle deep into the box and pulled gently away. It didn’t move. He floored the throttle and they bounced furiously. The car filled with the acrid stench of rubber smoke but stayed firmly in place. Backing down a few feet, with the front wheels still in the box, it pulled away easily. Such is experience! Along came Colin Stevens and did exactly the same thing. So did Alan Bellamy, who was told by marshal Ian Bates that everyone who put their back wheels in the box failed!
The other Falcons were all front wheels only men and got away OK. Including Dave Nash, although the Skeetle was becoming increasingly reluctant to pull from low revs. Neil Bray was pulling away from the restart when the rev counter stopped working, a few yards later the Skoda started to cough and the crew realised the petrol pump wasn’t working properly. Neil pumped away at the throttle and miraculously the accelerator pump drew enough fuel into the carb for the Skoda to stagger over the finish line. All captured on the forthcoming Classical Gas video. The problem lay in the fuse box and from then on it ate over a dozen fuses on the way to the finish.
That was it really. We still had Elmore, the two Putwell’s, Calton and Over Wheal but none of these presented any problems. Rowlands was cancelled because of some problems with a land owner but this would have been simple in the dry. Owen Briggs had difficulties with the hairpin on the Deep Rake special test in the long wheelbase Fugative and had to stop and reverse, which sadly cost him his gold.
Now it was back to Buxton for the finish and to congratulate Murray on his triple. There was quite a party atmosphere in the evening, many of the Falcons meeting up for an informal club dinner. Sadly this didn’t include Colin as his passenger discovered his house had been burgled so they drove straight home, as did John and Dot Parsons who were attending a dinner in Milton Keynes. Things were not simple for Peter Mountain either as his coil packed up when he drove home the next day.
So ended another super Edinburgh. It would have been better if there had been a bit more mud, but trialling in Derbyshire is fantastic whatever the weather. I’m waiting for the results to come through before listing all the Falcon medals, but lets congratulate Murray and Hazel MacDonald on a certain Triple.
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