Once again Bristol Motor Club were rewarded by a supurb entry for the popular Allen Trial. 74 cars were entered, dropping to just under 70 starters from The Bull at Hinton. It was cloudy but dry day after a lot of rain recently which was to make some of the sections very muddy.
Tog Hill was little more than a stone throw away. Its a gentle climb, claiming two victims, Simon Knight was driving his recently acquired Dellow on his first road trial after blooding it on The Bodmin Trial a few weeks ago. Stuart Palmer had spent much of the previous night rebuildg the top end of his Austin 7 after finding the cylinders full of water but was finding the car well down on power.
Tough Restart on Bitton Lane
There was no restart for Classes 1,2 and 8 but the majority had to stop and pull away on those well known slippery stones. This kept the marshals busy as around 40% failed to pull away.
Video Live Streaming on Guys Hill
Bristol Motor Club have been live streaming some of their events this year and choose Guys Hill for this Classic Trials innovation this year. This well known hill is notoriously slippery, especially for the Yellow and Red categories who have to restart on the upper reaches. This further reduced the clean sheets with less than 50% of the restarters pulling away. These included Nick Aldridge in his innovative Smart Roadster which was a shame as otherwise he would have been second in Class 7.
Separate Restarts on Travers
The tree Rooty restarts, one for Yellow and another for Red seemed more benign this year and claimed very few victims outside of Class Six. This well supported class had the biggest struggle with a less than 50% success rate. There was a time when this class was the province of Beetles. Former X90 protagonist Kevin Sharp was showing how well a Toyota MR2 can go and there were three of them competing on The Allen this year.
Ubley and the Mud
With all the rain leading ups to the event the mud at Ubley was inevitable. A special test was first on the agenda and those looking on were treated to a flying Duncan Stephens, a late entry in Mike Chatwins DP Wasp with Mike sitting alongside. Duncan repeated his performance late on the second test, reinforcing his reputation as one of the most outstanding performers in club motorsport. Ian Moss was unlucky to pick up a 6 point penalty on the test. Ian was clean on the observed sections and without this could have challenged for the overall win.
Class Eight had to restart on the first Ubley section which was quite a challenge and they were relieved that technical issues necessitated scrubbing the section from the results.
The second section at Ubley was very long this year, running alongside the tree line on its upper reaches. Successive cars removed the grass leaving later numbers with no option but to blast through the mud with few outside class eight succeeding. Bill Bennett was one of the few competitors in the second half of the field to go clean in the mud, treating Norton Selwood to an impressive display of driving in his first rise in a Class 2 car.
More Mud at Frys Bottom
The wooded complex of Frys Bottom followed the historic but straightforward this year Burledge.
All the sections in the woods were challenging, with Pete Hart and his team using deviations and restarts to make life difficult for the higher classes.
The third section in the woods was the tough one and only half a dozen cars were able to surmount the final bank. This included Matt Facey leaving only Matt and the Scimitars of ACTC Chair Dave Haizelden and Stuart Highwood left with clean sheets.
The enjoyable John Walker didn’t trouble the front runners leaving Matt the overall winner of this years Allen Trial as he was after than Dave and Stuart on the tests.
- Dave Cooks Photos
- Calvin Samuels Photos
- Andy Grants Photos
- InCar Video Playlist
- Video Playlist
- Full Provisional Results
- Sam Phillips reports
- The Allen Trial on the Classic Trials FB Group
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