We had a great day in the Beetle. I thought the weather was ideal. Quite a bit of mud on a dry day. Super.
Highlights of our day were getting smoothly around the hairpin at Ippikins Rock for a clean, unlike the last two years when we went a bit mad and understeered into the bank. We were also thrilled to clean two of the Priots Holt sections which we knew quite well having marshaled them during our sabbatical.
Loved the "new" Castle Hill section. Lets hope that went well with the locals and can be a feature of the event for the future (I still miss Hungerdord). For those that weren't there its very reminiscent of Axe on The Cotswold Clouds. Long and in a deep gully. OK its not a result deciding stopper but its very enjoyable.
Us lower class mortals were allowed into Strefford Woods this year. We cleaned the first of our sections, failed the second and used one of the higher class sections as the escape road including the gunge pit. Well done those marshals.
Negatives. Well I missed the track from Alez Oop to Priots Holt and I didn't like the regularity test. IMHO mental arithmetic shouldn't play a part in the results of a trial.
In summary. Well done Adrian, Graham, Pat and everyone else on the team for a super day.
How was your Clee Hills Trial?
Michael
Hi there,
ReplyDeleteWe had a great time, with a fair turn out of Liege also.
Course went a bit "lost" second loop, and belive it or not my humble Liege pulled out two stuck Marlins from a track in Strefford wood.
Turns out none of our class should have been there, and all four Liege got to the top only to find nothing there!
(Good practice for rest of trial I must say,we got a few cleans under our wheels)
Sections good muddy and hard, thanks to the Clerk of course only one restart all day.(The turn right a Church confusing)
Other clubs could do with looking at this format? its stop the hold ups when you can't get off the restarts.
Great event, cracking day
Thank you all.
Cheers
A thanks to my mate Jules for being our sponsor for this event :)
Steve & James Liege No 28
Glad you had a good day. Sorry for any confusion in the woods; I hope it didn't spoil what was a good day in other respects. We shall try to fix it next year. We had a bit of a problem with the exit. As the first time for some classes we had no experience of how it would play and will have a think about it. Any feedback is welcome.
ReplyDeleteCastle is a Simon Woodall find from prewar. Makes a change from the Burway.
Ratlinghope: nearly everyone likes it as a nice track but its a bit tame in truth. The regularity test was an attempt to make it a bit more challenging (inspired by Falcon, I believe). Most competitors did well and it was only a tie breaker as long as there was no wrong test. nevertheless we always welcome any feedback.
As to conditions in general: As late as Tuesday we needed snow chains to access Priors Holt and Gattens was only accessible by 4x4. The combination of a quick thaw and the frost coming out of the ground made conditions a bit greasy.
We did a few subtle repairs here and there to help but without spoiling the challenge, hopefully.
Overall it went very smoothly so thank you to all competitors, marshals and recovery crews.
We all miss Allez Oop, but the Landowner wanted £250 from us to use it!
ReplyDeleteI don't thing so.......
loved it although i reckon big dick bolt loved it more as he gave me a bit of a hiding in class 3 ,two things i learnt was 1 must try harder and 2 em robilliard smells better than groover [just] thanks all for another fun clee cheers arnie
ReplyDeleteYou both had a lotta throttle! - Michael
ReplyDeleteI had a very enjoyable day, I think the amount of light on the sections must have confused me as quite a lot of photos aren't as sharp as I like, Also the double loop makes it quite tricky to see all the field.
ReplyDeleteStill the photos are here:
http://hoits.smugmug.com/Classic-Trials/Clee-2010
enjoy.
dave cook
We had a really enjoyable day, great new sections, ground and weather conditions were perfect. Maybe the Allez Oop landowner will be a bit more realistic next year. Our in car video is online at
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/205trialer
where amongst other things you can see Reg Salway on Easthope 1 and Dave Haizelden's interaction with a tree on The Jenny Wind.
Cracking day out, most enjoyable even if I did get yet another lesson from Giles on how it should be done.
ReplyDeleteExcellent photos as always Dave.
James that was just after Dave had told us dont worry about the tree it will steer itself round it!! Big lift, brake lights, Nick Farmer's life flashing before his eyes and all the momentum was lost.
ReplyDeleteThe times on the regularity test will make very entertaining reading I expect...an interesting different challenge - its only for tie-breakers afterall. Three of class one did fail the Longville special test...maybe it would have been better as a hill with different restarts?
Enjoyable day - now to clean the car!
Duncan, Longville has been run in all sorts of different ways over the years including as a section with all sorts of different restarts. It caught loads of people out in 2004 when it was run as a special test very similar to this year, judging by James' excellent demonstration (!). Personally I think it's quite nice to do something different with a hill rather than do the same thing year after year.
ReplyDeleteMichael will no doubt know that regularity tests were just one of the many different sorts of tests that featured in the halcyon days of 1930s trialling...MCC trials still are 'reliability trials' ...however, like you, I personally find the maths and the driving slowly a bit painful.
I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed my day, seeing the whole thing from the other side, and actually getting to drive the hills I've only ever walked.
ReplyDeleteTo win was just the icing on the cake, and IMHO a fitting way to celebrate THIRTY YEARS since I first organised the event.
A good start to the year. Great pic's by Dave C. Very dodge U tube vid!!
ReplyDeleteWhere did that tree come from? Sure grew fast, a lot quicker than Duncan on a special test. xx