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| Binky and Mrs Binky invoke ancient gods to bring us luck in the 2014 Exeter Trial |
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| This is the first time out for the revised and much improved lighting arrangements. It's, er, a bit dark here so you'll maybe have to my word for it. |
Binky (Mr Robert Robinson-Collins) had made a number of improvements to the Allard including new head and foglights. They look much more in keeping with the vehicle and, with 60w bulbs, Binkers felt they allowed him to drive on low beam most of the time, so long as it wasn't raining.
This made life a lot easier for me because the foot operated dip switch is on the floor near the edge of the seat cushion almost under the driver's legs and can only be reached by the hand of the passenger.
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| That's the dipswitch just below the gearlever. The fly off hand brake actually is on the passenger's side of the car |
Ah yes. The rain. It only really started after the touring assembly and the compulsory rest stop at Sparkford Motor Museum. This is the bit about classic trialling that I like the least. There's no interior light on our old car but I have a head torch and a pretty good sense of direction even when you can't see the sun or know which direction is north, it's still not easy and perhaps because of my disrupted travel plans I felt tired during the wait at Sparkford. I want action and had to wait until the first section at Classic Canes but by the time we came out it was raining heavily.
This section was a new one to both of us and was causing problems. It was so slippery with the recent rain that failures caused the queue of cars to stretch back onto the public highway. there wasn't much traffic at five in the morning but we did help the police with their enquiries about what was going on.
We'd discussed the use of the handbrake to pre-load the diff and prevent wheelspin but when Binky actually tried it the car bogged down instead. Binky floored it and waggled the front tyres by sawing at the steering wheel but even with the Allard roaring we ground to a halt a few metres below the Section Ends boards. We managed to get going again and when we came onto the shale track beyond it felt like we were in a catapult as the car shot forward.
It wasn't a good start but our faith in our capabilities began to be restored at Underdown, another new one to me but Rob had done it before on his Cotton trials bike. It was deep in a valley and heavily forested with a very rough approach road that could have made a killer section by itself.
On Norman's Hump we stopped low in the restart box and got off the line smartly. The Allard was missing a bit at high revs as we climbed the hump but Binky reckoned that it helped traction. we felt sorry for the bedraggled marshals, though. By now, it had been raining pushrods for hours.
On Clinton we almost suffered a brown out, perhaps not the sort some of the more ribald among might think of. Our brown out occurred when we hit the puddle and sent a wall of muddy water over the car and ourselves. For sometime we couldn't see where we were going and Binky had to rely his Dark Arts training to keep us on course. Did I mention he was at Hogwarts 1973 -1980?
By now it was obvious to us that we were getting through the sections pretty sharpish. At Sparkford, extra buffers of time had been inserted between the batched of cars from Cirencester, Popham and Okehampton, and I think we were in and out of sections 3-4 in about 15 minutes.
By the time we got to Waterloo it was daylight. I'd never tried it before as it was scratched in 2012 but really liked the roller coaster feel of it. The Allard is long for a trials car but Rob swung away at the wheel and I leant out of the way to let him. Roger Ugalde actually asked us how tow big blokes like us fitted in the thing. I keep the body armour in my motorcycle suit and apart from a slight juddering am completely unconcerned by the flailing elbows next to me. This tight section has had cars rocked over onto their door handles but we were okay - no doors and no door handles!
Stretes and Bulverton Steep posed us no problems and gradually we began to realise through the haze of mist and fatigue that we had begun to enjoy the trial. My motorcycle jacket rides up a bit when I get in the car and as the seatback was wet my shirt soon became damp. I became cold around the kidneys soon after that and apart form wet feet from adjusting tyres pressures in puddles I was dry. The Allard's V8 keep us warm but if we had the hood up and we went through a puddles there was so much steam it misted up the windscreen. And that's in a cockpit with no doors, just cutdown sides, and no side screens.
I didn't think I needed another breakfast at Crealy Park but once I smelt it I couldn't resist. I'm sure I'm not the only one who counteracts lack of sleep with food intake.
On Tillerton Steep the engine died in the restart box and thanks to the ford at the foot of the hill our brake drums were wet and the hand brake wouldn't hold us against the gradient. We rolled back and failed the section but got away again alright.
Our principal Learning From Experience was the importance of the clothes peg on the choke. The idle speed can drop when we're at an angle so applying some choke and keeping the knob out (Oh matron!) with the peg did the trick from then on.
Fingle was Rob's favourite the sort of hill that keeps on keeping on with sweeping fast turns in a beautiful setting above the River Teign (check) which was in spate.
Wooston Steep was the hill that Binkers was most worried about but our restart was good and it ended up being the one he was most pleased with for some time. This year us Class 7s swung round to the left but Mr R-C wanted to go straight up like a Class 8. We nearly did but he remembered or restrained himself and we breezed round properly.
The route out of Wooston is quite thought provoking. The track is narrow and cut into the side of a very steep hill. In some places it is poorly defined and one false turn of the wheel and we could've gone tumbling down the valley.
Then we had the last of the three special tests. They were all of the same sort with a start line, a second line we had to get all four wheels over before reversing to get all four wheels back over it again and then a blast to the final line to stop astride it. A good performance here can make all the difference to a Class award and although we weren't in the running for that sort of thing we like to have a good crack at everything we do.
However, brain fade was catching up with us. Mrs Binky had sent Binky in to have his ears tested and inexplicably it turned out that there was nothing wrong with the hardware but the software still means you have to say everything twice. He wears earplugs when trialling so the hardware is muffled, too. It's just one of those things and I can be the same. I know I'll be shouting out the route card twice but if it means we don't go wrong then I'll shout it out three or four times.
My interpretation of the route card directions was also becoming questionable. Usually, I'm pretty good but cold and fatigue were setting in. I also had a cold and had literally been under the weather since 0400 hours.
At the next fuel stop we needed chocolate. The weather had improved but my back was still wet around the kidneys and I didn't really dry out until the change of clothes at the end. thanks heavens I'd had the foresight to wrap my dry clothes in a Morrisons bag.
I wasn't hungry before Ilsington Parish Hall but then I saw the cake. After more sleep-compensating over-indulgence washed down with fortifying tea, we bumped down the track to Simms.
I've spectated here many times before but never climbed this section. It's the Exeter's equivalent of Blue Hills and even more of a blast in several senses of that over used word. the atmosphere for spectators is brilliant and you always end up chatting away to someone interesting.
But the first and last time we attempted it the hill was closed due to an accident
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| In the queue for Simms we discussed our strategy |
Great.
It didn't sound like much was getting up it and a few people walking back to Ilsington were muttering about the flying stones.
With one car in front of us on the start line we quickly dropped the back tyres from our usual 12 psi to 10. Rob also asked for the fronts to be softened, too. He had an idea that too many cars were hitting the rock step too hard and bouncing off it and losing momentum.
We took off sharply and took the corner wide, reliving the wall of death antics that we'd employed on Waterloo and then Binky floored it. I didn't notice the rock step but we crested a series of bumps with the engine bellowing.
"We're going to make it!" I thought.
Then the car jumped out of gear. Fortunately, we were at the top and it took a little while to register that we were passed the Section Ends boards. Restarting was no problem so we wriggled up to the top where previous owner Grahame Greenwell leapt out of the crowd and congratulated us. So it must have been true - we cleared Simms! Also next to him were the mother and son I talked to last year while spectating. It was good to be able to show off in front of them especially.
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| A triumphant Binky. The Allard looks so much better with its new (i.e old) headlamps |
Parked at the start of Tipley was Duncan Pittaway's TVR and a Porsche 924 with its bonnet up and we feared the worst. Regular readers will remember how he came to our aid on last year's Land's End.
That left only Slippery Sam to do, which was another first for me. After a quick chat with John Deacon on the start line, we romped up to the restart and Binky stopped low in the box, did his thing with the clothes peg on the choke to keep the revs up and off we went. Instead of a roller coaster it felt more like a rodeo ride and we were - frankly - all over the shop but not really caring.
On the exit we saw Duncan in his TVR. His car was okay but he had the Porsche of Ben Collings and Will Wright in tow. When we saw them it looked to us like their strop had broken so we stopped, eager to return a good deed, but they'd simply untied their cars so Duncan and Ant could zoom off to play on Slippery Sam and then return to towing duties.
By the time we reached the finish it was still light, which hasn't happened to us for a long, long time. I think the introduction of buffers of 15 and 30 minutes between the cars from the three starting points is an improvement. Apart from the early exception of Classic Canes (we'll get that right next year just you see), there was no prolonged waiting around at controls and sections, which nobody likes. that would have been grim in the rain and it's easier on the marshals, too.
I felt a bit off colour just before the club supper but revived a bit once I began putting names to faces. Some people call it school dinners but the food was good, the company blimmin marvellous and I couldn't help but perk up. On my table were Rob and Joy Smith who'd suffered a cracked case on their Beetle and were non starters. They said they would 've come to watch anyway and saw us climb Simms.
There had been an earlier incident with a burning motorcycle. After filling up at the Musbury Control, it suffered a leak and on the next section, presumably Norman's Hump, it went up in flames. All anyone could do was stand back and let it burn although in those circumstances the heavy rain would've helped for once. Then half a dozen burly types got together and carried it off the section.
I had considered an early night for my cold was "setting in" but the company was too stimulating. On my left was Di Wall who looks completely different when she's not wearing waterproofs. I'm sorry I didn't recognise you madam. And then we saw Stuart and Will Crouch, began an animated chinwag and the next thing we knew the hotel staff were pointedly putting chairs on tables.
I slept soundly despite a bunged up nose and in the morning Rob dropped me off in Honiton at my car so I could drive home. There was still a lot of standing water and the Allard's brakes weren't too clever. One front wheel could lock up while the other was too damned nonchalant. Overall, though, Rob's sorted the car out well and has much more confidence in it.
So we think we are in for a Bronze Award. Roll on the 2014 Land's End!
