I had a great day out on Sunday, with my mate John, competing in the Cranmog Car Trial at Hyde, Bedfordshire. There were 16 4/4's competing and around half a dozen +4s and half a dozen in the +8/Roadster class. The organizers had set out 6 hills over two sites connected by an access road through a tunnel under the railway track. We all had two attempts at each hill, morning and afternoon - so 4 rounds which made for a decent time behind the wheel. The morning was dry but it rained a little after lunch making driving conditions a little more slippery. The weather took a turn for the worse whilst we were waiting for the scores to be totted up - it would have been horrible trialling in that weather.
This was my first ever Car Trial, so John and I carefully walked the first three hills to try to get a feel for it - I thought the route seemed like it would be tighter when it was when we drove it! We were then told the 4/4s would be starting on the second site - darn!
We drove over and had a quick walk around but I soon decided to just go for it. The first route started but going up-slope to gate 12 then a 110 degree left turn for 11 before weaving around and back up-slope for a stop-start at 7, then a 90 right, weave back to the left and up hill to gate 1. I set off and successfully made it through 12 but completely misjudged the turn and failed to make it through the next gate - 11 penalty points. Not a good start - but thankfully my worst score of the day. I did a lot better on the second hill and cleared the third. Yes! A second round on these three hills saw improvements to something like 6 (I failed the stop-start
), 3 and another clean. Not bad.
Over to the other site. The first hill was not too taxing for ascents or descents but had a very sharp left-hander at 8 and a sharper right-hander at 4. I made it past 4 - 3 points. I then cleaned the other two hills - on a roll now. Whilst waiting for my second attempt the the first hill on this site again we watched the only non-Morgan tackle it - and new-ish MR2 with a very experienced driver - and we saw how he dealt with the right-hander by booting it and sliding the back end round. John saw this and was watched the next two competitors try - and fail - to emulate the method to work out when to start the slide. All I had to do was drive us to gate 4 then John would yell at the right moment - it worked. We were pointing the right way for gate 3 and got through there and all the way to the end - another clean.
And I picked up no more penalty points on that site before lunch.
A sneak-peak at the figures at lunch looked like I was in the top half of the scores for 4/4s. Good going for our first time out.
As I said, it rained over lunch and the ground was more slippy. We started on the side we had finished on - but the organisers had adjusted the course slightly because it had been proving too hard for the +8s. I realised they had smoothed out the left-hander on the first hill but thought the right-hander was unchanged so we used the same technique that got us past it in the morning. But the slippy surface meant that my tyres didn't regain full grip and so we were spinning the rear wheels and bouncing the car all the way to gate 1. Phew. The next competitor to tackle that hill didn't try the sliding technique but successfully got the car round - they had changed 4 after-all. Still, John and I managed to clean all through hills in rounds 3 and 4. So back over to the other site. On the first hill we attempted here I got further than any other competitor - even the MR2. But then I went on to lose more penalty points than we had in the morning! We didn't go as low as an 11 again, but we did drop more points than we would have liked after our earlier successes.
Unfortunately my name didn't appear in the winners list but no matter - we'd had a great time and felt we'd done well for our first trial.
Yesterday, an email arrived from the organiser with the full table of results and I found out I had come fourth in class - just one point behind the third place! Hurrah - well satisfied.
Thanks to Philip Loring, Cranmog and all the marshals, scrutineers and stewards for a great Car Trial.
I think I'll go trialling again.
