Paul Merson and his team returned the Exmoor Clouds to the roads this year after a couple of years as a Covid imposed single venue event. They were rewarded by a full entry including no less than 20 Class Eight Cars.
The battle for the overall car win was between the three lightweight, front engined, class eights of Dean in his DP Falcon, Charlie Merson in his Ford Special and Jack Selwood in the DP Ford.
Robins Nest was the first section and the three contenders all went clean. Charlie was initially penalised two for hitting a marker but this was corrected in the final results as its allowed on Classic sections unless the instructions say otherwise.
Dean dropped five, on the next section, Churchtown, Charlie scored a five as well while Jack picked up six. Dean and Charlie went clean for the rest of the event to finish one, two overall. Dean taking the win on special test times. Jack scored a four on Pin Quarry, when his diff grounded out, and he had to settle for third overall.
There were a few significant retirements including Dave Haizelden in his Scimitar. Katrina Selwood had to drop out after a few hills when her Trolls engine refused to run properly. Then towards the end of the event Tom Jones had a conflagration that was sorted with the help of his fellow competitors.
Stuart Highwood had an excellent Class 5 win and fourth overall in his Scimitar and Ray Ferguson was the only other non class eight car to break into the top ten.
Rom Dobbs was best Solo with a clean sheet on his Beta X-Trainer. Class A was closely fought, Neil Browne (650 Triumph Matisse) winning the battle over Chris Barham on his 250 BSA and photographer brother Peter on his Triumph Matisse. To complete the Browne family picture sister Julia passengered Crackington Championship contender Roger Ashby for his Class Two win.
Links:-
- The Exmoor Clouds on the Classic Trials FB Group
- All the Exmoor Clouds posts on the Classic Trials FB Group This link works in a Browser but you may struggle with it in the app
- Video Playlist
- Calvin Samuels Photos
- Churchtown Videos by Norton Selwood
- Luxborough Lawns videos by Norton Selwood
- Water Run Videos by Norton Selwood
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Classical Gas 
Made a couple of corrections when the finals were published. The result didn’t change but it did affect then body text.
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