Stroud attracted their usual full entry for the Cotswold Clouds. The route followed a familiar path, with just a few subtle changes, including, substituting Mackhouse with a new section called Wicked Juniper.
There had been a lot of rain on the Saturday, which made the hills very slippery. This affected Crawley, put in to be an easy opener, but proved to be a problem for Murray MacDonald who found that his un-ballasted Mk2 Golf had very little grip and needed pushing to get going. After a similar experience on the lower slopes of Crooked Mustard, Murray and Hazel decided to call it a day and head for home rather than cause more hold ups. But watch out Dave Haizelden, he will be back.
During their inspection the week before the Stroud organisers had reckoned that Crooked Mustard was going to be easier than usual, but the rain on Saturday put paid to that. The first cars had a definite advantage as the rock steps were quite clean, but as the morning went on mud was drawn down from the banks making it more and more slippery.
As Andrew Brown says, “Crooked Mustard is all about taking the right line”. The flyweights in Class Eight had a definite advantage as their short wheelbase and ample power to weight ratio’s allowed them to revise their strategy if they got it wrong. Most succeeded, as did the buggies of Simon Woodall and Ian Davis. Two of the best climbs were made by father and son Wall. David storming up early on in the Canhi special and Eric making it all look effortless in his big wheeled Dellow, which has the smoothest, sweetest, engine I have ever heard. Geoff Hodge has quite a wide wheelbase on the RDT and with this disadvantage wasn’t able to correct a bad line and failed between the two corners.
Class Seven had a challenge. Their lower power to weight ratio and longer wheelbases meant they had to have a perfect line to succeed. Only four made-it, three Marlins and Derek Tyler in his Baja Beetle. Rick Neale was one of many to get the line wrong in his Dutton Melos, cutting the corner too tight to the sound of an enormous crack as the transmission broke.
Two Class six cars were clean. Gary Browning in the Course Opening car, which doesn’t count of course! and Mike Hobbs amongst the competitors. It looked all over for Mike when he cut in to tight on the right hander and lost a lot of speed. He recovered and got things absolutely perfect on the left hander but he had lost so much momentum it looked as if he would come to a stop. Mike kept his foot down, the Beetle swayed from side to side, and just found enough grip to be the only saloon to go clean. Mark Smith used all the power of his 2-litre motor to throw his Beetle at the left hander but it ploughed into, rather than around, the bank and he came to a halt.
Everyone was looking forward to class Four to see if Ian Moss and Adrian Marfell would get up. We will never know if Ian would have got the right line. His new engine proved too powerful for the transmission, which let go with a loud bang on the lower reaches and could be heard destroying itself as he backed down. Adrian tried his hardest but hit the step between corners two and three all wrong and it just wouldn’t go over.
Class three provided the biggest spectacle. Tristan White performed perfect walls of death on corners two and three only to stop when a plug lead came off. Simon Grooves tried a similar trick but it didn’t quite come off, leaving the Escort with a front wheel four feet in the air and needing a fair few bodies to hang onto it to stop it turning over while he backed down. Then Colin Perryman came along and broke a half shaft on his nice BMW so it definitely wasn’t a Class Three day! Steve Potter deserves an honourable mention, getting his Trojan right up to the third corner before running out of puff but getting a huge handclap from the appreciative spectators.
Nailsworth was a challenge for the re-starters in the higher classes as it was pretty slippery and they had to stop just before the step. The fact it was a challenge was revealed when none other than Dudley Sterry couldn’t get away. The lower classes didn’t have to restart, their challenge was for their transmissions to survive as they hit the step at speed and leapt into the air. Neither Colin Biles (Midget) nor Nigel Scotford (Escort) diffs survived. Simon Groves’ Fack stayed in one piece for him to win the high jump!
Ham Mill incorporated the new deviation pioneered last year and this was where the restart was situated. It was very slippery lower down and Mike Chatwin and Robert Grounds bounced so much they lost their spare wheels. The re start wasn’t to bad for the class eights but was a challenge for the lower classes and Simon Groves and Verdun Webley couldn’t get away cleanly.
Mackhouse was omitted this year and a new section called Wicked Juniper introduced. This is in the same area near Stroud as the famous pre-war trials hill pictured in Austen May’s book, but is not the original section. The inspiration for the “Wicked” part of the name probably came from its location in Wick Street. Ian Davis reports that the new section was excellent, much better than Mackhouse. It had a long, steep, muddy climb up a track through trees until the four marker over bare earth. Many didn’t get past the initial bend and rise at the ten. There were nine clears including Ian, Simon Woodall, Paul Bartleman, Dudley Sterry, Tony Young and Brian Phipps in his Marlin. The new section saw the end of Bill Foreshew’s Trial when his GVS retired with a holed piston. In the lower classes Adrian Marfell got a long way up but eventually the engine bogged down and he stopped.
The action after lunch commenced with a special test followed by the familiar Freds Folly which has definitely got more difficult over the years. Class eight had to restart on polished stones which defeated Ian Davis and Robert Gregg who had to retire his Troll with a broken prop shaft.
Merves Swerve was back to the straightforward climb over the hump, without last years tricky deviation. It didn’t matter, the conditions were enough to make it difficult, especially for the class sevens. There were two restarts. The class eights were right up against the hump, the sevens a little further down. The extra distance to attack the hump didn’t do any good as it was so slippery none of them got off the line. There was some confusion on the restart as the marshal was standing on the class eight line and quite a few class sevens went up to this instead of stopping on their own line. In some cases they were allowed to back down to their line and have a go. This could have caused some dispute but in the end was nullified as none got away. Most of the top men in class eight got up, despite their restart, but none of the saloons apart from the amazing David Haizelsen could get over the big bump although Simon Groves came very close.
Highwood 1 was very slippery around the restart as usual, but was cleanable with a struggle. Highwood 2 had a high limit of 16 psi and some of the class 8’s struggled for grip. Ian Davis failed at the 9. Fellow Buggy driver Simon Woodall at the 7 and Paul Bartleman the 4. In Paul and Simons case these were the only marks they lost all day. Tony Young got right up to the two but had already failed to get off the Nailsworth restart. It was left to Carl Talbot in his Class Eight Morris Trialsmaster to prove the section was possible and he flew up to be the only car to reach Andrew Brown who was marshalling the top of the section.
Climperwell was the usual trek through the trees. It had a comparatively easy restart but you had to stay in the ruts to avoid the trees and Ian Davis was one of many who didn’t to the detriment of his score.
The trial drew to a close with the restarts on Bulls Bank 1 and 2 which got more tricky as the day went on. Ian Davis failed the first one, in front of the marshalling Foreshew family but no problems for Carl Talbot who cleaned both to win the Cotswold Clouds with a clean sheet.
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