I went down to spectate and do a bit of Mountain Biking with my son Richard, having retired the Beetle early for it’s summer re-build and rear end strengthening. I like cross country mountain biking but at my age need to warm up slowly each summer and riding up the tracks to watch Snompers etc deep in the forest seemed be a good way to combine both interests.
We downloaded the entry list from the Web Community, courtesy of Simon Woodall and saw that the entry were running together in classes. As we arrived in the village of Yorkley we saw number one Peter Fear turning up, so we were going to miss a few of the class eight’s. We unloaded the bikes and cycled into the forest to get to Snompers just in time to see our Falcon club-mate attempt the hill. The whites and blues went up the normal way but the yellows and reds had a dead end diversion on pure mud up through the trees.
Things didn’t look quite normal for the whites and blues either, as the marshals had created a chicane by putting a tree trunk across the track, just by the yellow and blue diversion and there was a re-start for the whites as well.
John Parsons under-steered into the bank on the "S" bend by the diversion, a fate that was to befall quite a few people, including Mike Hobbs who looked pretty disgusted with himself in his big engined Beetle. Fellow Beetle man ??? Allen was one of the most spectacular performers, he powered round the S bend without any trouble but ground to a halt in the mud around the three and then sat there burning rubber for the best part of a minute! Like all those who made the higher reaches he then had the problem of avoiding a protruding tee on the way down, not easy as their was no grip on the glutinous mud which had no bottom as this was diversion was not a proper track.
The tree caused a lot of problems for the MG car club marshals who had to work hard as every car had to be manhandled past. I felt sorry for Clive Kalber in the Tucker–Peake Pop (which I still call "The Runner Bean"). Clive clipped the tree with the roof on the way up and then rubbed along it on the way down. There was nothing Clive could have done as he was in the ruts and there was no way he could have got out of them to avoid the tree. I do hope there wasn’t too much damage to this wonderful motor car.
The best car I saw on yellow/red diversion was Adrian Dommett who trickled nearly to the top at some considerable speed and only put his foot down when he had almost stopped. Not that it helped much because there was absolutely no grip in the mud. We arrived too late to see Dudley, which disappointed Richard who has heard so much about him. Stuart Harrold did well in his Troll and so did Simon Woodall who impressed me by getting the Baja round the S bend without under-steering into the bank because it is so light on the front end.
I was interested to watch the bikes, having never seen them on a Classic before. They all had to go the difficult way, which I thought, was a bit unfair, as they were nearly hub deep in very sticky mud and very difficult to control. However, we saw two excellent climbs, one solo getting to the top and a chair getting very near.
We saw the ones, twos and most of the fours up the "easy route" and only saw two cleans. Bill Bennett in his J2 and my Falcon buddy Neil Bray in his Skoda. The problem was the "artificial chicane" as we didn’t see anyone else actually get to the re-start. You really needed to stay in the ruts but had to come out to get round the chicane and most people couldn’t get round. I felt very sorry for Peter Manning and xxx in their Midgets. They got around the chicane but there was no way they could get to the re-start as the ruts were so deep. The Beetles I saw (I missed Richard Peck) all stopped in the same place, cross-rutted, wheels in the air, sorry Giles, Murray and the others.
We saw a few cars on the following section. Murray MacDonald got up OK but Simon Robson ground out and Jim Scott didn’t put his foot down hard enough in Rich Welches Beetle.
I chatted to Peter Thompson (Opel) briefly as I left and discovered he was a Classical Gas reader. As I had not pictured or mentioned him in my March Hare report and had left Snompers before his go, I decided to try and catch him on Mine Moss and arrived just in time. We stayed on to see John Bell puncture on the sharp rocks and a pair of magnificent climbs by David Heale and Dave Turner (love that Blower).
Back in the car to rush up to Deep Dean. We missed Dudley again but saw him changing a tyre on the road after the section. I understand Peter Fear cleaned the hill but no other car did while we were there (but we saw a Solo succeed). Not only didn’t we see any cars clean but nobody even moved on the re-start which had a huge step. This was made worse by a rock. Now an interesting thing was that when cars reversed down the hill to take a run the marshal’s removed the rock and put it back again when they had passed!
We saw John Parsons struggle with a punctured tyre and a rather strange performance by the recovery driver in the Land Rover who demonstrated hand brake turns very well but found grip nearly as elusive as the competitors. Had a brief chat with Web Community member Duncan Stephens who was spectating, then it was home to watch the Grand Prix.
Overall impressions. A good day but I was glad I was spectating not driving as I thought it was far too rough for me! Controversial perhaps, I didn’t see everything and I would be interested to hear the views of saloon car competitors.
How was your Kyrle?
