Went yesterday with Don (Stringer). After a leisurely stop off for breakfast at Willoughby we arrived around 10.30 to find the place was already heaving. Lots more people around than the last two years I have been. Almost immediately we bumped into David Alderson who was in charge of the Motorcycle Hall where the MCC had a stand. No video this year which was a shame. As interesting as the bikes and the Morgan on the stand were they are not what the club is selling, its the events. Successful Exhibition stands are all about Light, Movement and Sound, always have been always will be!



Don Stringer talking to David Alderson who was in charge of the Motorcycle Hall

Moving into the car halls there was something for everyone. However therewere an awful lot of new and newish vehicles. IMHO nothing should be allowed thats less than 20 years old!

Neil's "C" was looking good on the Y&C stand where I had an interesting chat about capacitors. Following the advice I picked up a couple of DCB 101C types. Will try those and see if they last more than a few hundred miles.



There was a Mk 5 Dellow on the Ford Sidevalve Owners Club stand

There was plenty of other stuff to see and a reasonable autojumble to browse so we didn't leave until gone 4, to join the huge traffic jams around Coventry as plod had closed the M6, making what should have been an hour and a bit journey back to Bedford last three and a half hours.

Click Here for more pictures

Michael and Mike in LOC 827 tackle Wigber Low in this picture by Don Stringer.

Click Here for more of Don's Edinburgh Pictures

A firm fixture on the Classical Gas calendar and all the better now the Mechanics Trial has been moved so the two don't clash.

Getting close we wondered if it was on as the roads were remakably free of VW's. No worries though as the place was heaving inside and there were plenty of stalls with all sorts of stuff, new and old. Hertz VW club had decided not to have a stand but most of the other usual suspects were present. They included Jim Calvert of Stateside tuning who along with Robert Clough was responsible for the engine in OOY.

Lots of interesting cars outside. Not many Beetles anymore but lots of Type 2's.


Picture to follow

Notes from the organisers
Results

Pictures by Barry Walker

It was a really wet one. It started raining just before we left Chaos manor, just after 8am and the heavens remained open until lunchtime.

I was looking forward to the last event of LOC 827's little season (Aviva Classic - Class 0 Edinburgh - Guy Fawkes). After this attention will shift to the Beetle from the Exeter to the Lands End.

Since the Lands End the radiator had been refurbished and this proved successful. The car seemed fine and off we went in the rain.

Keith Pettit and Peter Manning had laid out seven sections on the long Kensworth grassy bank. They were not too bad in the morning, while the grass remained, but became harder in the afternoon when the grass had gone, even though the rain had stopped.

LOC 827 went fine for the first round but developed a fit of the sulks with three sections to go before lunch. First it ran out of battery and had to be bump started, then it wouldn't run properly. At lunch we took it out on the road for a quick run to recharge the battery (No alternator remember, we are running a Dynamo). It wouldn't pull properly. We thought about having a run for home but decided to return to the paddock and having a look at it.

The points were OK, they hadn't closed up. So we changed the condenser, and for good measure the plugs, both of which involved removing the distributor. This seemed to do the trick and all went well during the afternoon.

We stayed on for the results and were tickled pink to win "best Falcon", which was presumably awarded on Index. We will see when the results come out. Howard Blackwell won our class in his Suzuki XC90 and Mike Pearson won overall.

Now to clean off the mud, get the carbs sorted (it runs far too rich) and get it an MOT before putting it away till next spring.

Attention will shift to preparing the Beetle for its trials season and hopefully getting the A7 running. However there are some jobs to do on LOC 827.

• Dynamo Mounting
• Condenser issue. Look at Electronic Ignition?
  
• Sort the parking brake so the handle doesn't stick in my knee.
• Change from +ve to -ve earth?

Dry Conditions meant plenty of medals

A comparatively easy route, and dry weather, meant the competitors won this years battle against the club, with a lot of happy MCC members winning a medal on the trial and 14 the coveted triple. The organisers had a lot of problems gaining permission to use sections and favourites like Litton Slack and Great Hucklow were omitted. Of the sections that remained Putwell and Bamford were considered much rougher than usual.

It was nice and dry without much wind when competitors gathered for the start at Tamworth Services, those arriving to early getting a nice surprise a few weeks after the event when they got a parking ticket for staying too long! These didn’t include Peter Mountain or Don Stringer as neither were able to take the start.

The run in to the first section at Wigber Low was over good roads. The MCC had made the holding control a time control as well. With the prospect of penalties for early arrival lay-bys and driveways were full of competitors whiling away time, which in the event may have been more disruptive to the local community than an orderly queue on the deserted country road where the holding control was situated! Ross Nuten was one of those parked up with his Dellow Mk2, not waiting but broken down with electrical problems. At the time Ross thought it was a  capacitor issue, but after a re occurrence on a Falcons Brickhill Trial the following week, it appears the inside of the Aldon distributor had come apart.

Wigber Low didn’t present any problems to the main trial and failed only a couple of bikes in Class 0, including John Turner on his Lambretta Li 150. With such an unsuitable machine John deserved a special medal for finishing the route, despite being rather intimidated by the omni-present course closing car for most of the trial.

Having passed Haven Hill on the way to the first section the route went in a circle before retuning to this rather rutted track across a field before venturing into a small wood. Here competitors on the main trial did a restart and diverted off to the left, round a taped off chicane. This was controversial as it wasn’t mentioned in the routecard and in the end those who wrong routed were credited with a clean, including Bill Moffatt in his Reliant Scimitar who would have lost his Triple had the section stood.

Class 0 bypassed Clough Wood, where car competitors had their usual long wait for the bikes to clear, this section always causing them problems. It didn’t pose to much difficulty for the  four wheeled brigade, Nick Farmer in his Cannon Alfa being a notable exception. The engine kept dying despite Nick changing most of the ignition and cleaning out the fuel system. After the event Nick discovered the problem was the ignition switch.

Then it was North up the A6 to the quarry complex where Class 0 had their own nice little section at Deep Rake with a restart before joining the main trial for the Deep Rake Special Test and the Black Harry section where they were didn’t have to do the restart. These sections were quite exposed. A cold wind had whipped up which wasn’t so great for the marshals. These sections didn’t trouble the scorer to much apart for poor Reg Taylor who was penalised for hitting a marker on Deep Rake.

While Class 0 went off for their breakfast at Bull I’th Thorn competitors in the main trial went to Putwell, considered by many to be the roughest hill on the trial. Robin Barlow would certainly agree after breaking the diff on his Dellow Mk2, running in Class 8 because of its OHIV cylinder head. Despite being so rough there were were few failures but it did claim the scalps of Kevin Barnes in his Liege and Beetle mounted John Looker. Michael Weeks punctured in his Midget but still cleaned the section, going on to win a Triple in his first MCC season.

Class 0 went directly to Calton after the break, missing out the main trials 25 mile loop as they visited the sections at Bamford Clough and Elmore. David Alderson was Chief Official at Bamford and reckoned it was a lot rougher than when he last drove it a few years ago. Competitors in low powered cars who eased off over the bumps payed the price when they  didn’y have the power to re-build their momentum. Classes Seven and Eight had a restart. It proved to much for Nick Farmers Cannon Alfa which was still not running properly and Paul Bartleman was another Class 8 driver who lost his gold here. In Class Seven the restart wasn’t Liege friendly Julian Lack, Mark Endley, Kevin Barnes and Steve Kenny al being penalised. Arthur Jones was clean in his larger engined car running in Class Eight and Colin Marshal proved it could be done with a Reliant engine in Class Seven. Myke Pocock had a drive shaft pop out but fortunately had a spare and was able to change it back down in the village. The good news was that the engine is finally running well.

After Bamford the main trial headed south to join class 0 at Calton. There was a section called Elmore on the way, located on the rough track between Brough and Abney, heading over the top of Bradwell Edge, bypassing the usual run through Bradwell itself. Everyone had a restart on the section, which competitors reckoned was another rough one. It certainly wasn’t very friendly too Stuart Harrold and Chris Phillips. The rocks proved to much for one of the balljoints on the front section which popped out, disabling their Troll as they exited the section. Not to be thwarted they, like Fred Gregory on Putwell a few years ago, found the missing nut and were able to continue to gain a gold.

Down at Calton Classes 0 and 1 didn’t have to restart but the others did. This wasn’t very Falcon friendly and both John Parsons (VW Buggy) and Peter Thompson (Opel Kadett) were given fails. John’s Buggy sports a type 4 engine, a smart paint job and a different number. However, it is the well trialled machine, campaigned by Graham Marshall before he switched to the RDT and David Thompson before he purchased his Troll from David Alderson.

Stephen Kingstone had been clean up till now in his Midget. He was also to fail on Calton and was given a run back on the restart at the Excelsior section where everyone except Class 0 had to stop and get going on the polished stones between the ninety right and nighty left, their efforts captured by John Salters lens. The dry conditions made the section easier than some years but it still claimed Myke Pocock in his Skoda and the Suzuki X90’s of Howard Blackwell, Marvin Hurst and Peter Grenyer. Brian Alexander proved it was possible to get away in a heavy XC90 but unfortunately he had failed the previous section at Rakes Head.

There was nice bit of green laning between Excelsior and Moneystones, so the route could bypass the village of Hartington. Unfortunately there was some confusion between the route marking and the route card. Some of the early numbers followed the routecard before getting lost, going back and following the marking which was correct.

Moneystones was similar to last year. Everyone had a restart in one the Edinburgh's tiny boxes. Class 0 had a straight run up the track but like Haven Hill the main trial had a diversion that wan’t mentioned in the route card. Unlike Haven Hill this stood in the results, costing Stuart Roach his triple, as Stuart was shown as stopping in his Austin Seven.

The same sort of layout was used just across the A515 at Middleton Steep. This was the last section for Classes 1 to 6 who didn’t have a section at Dudwood, only driving the special test there.

There was a lot going on at Dudwood, centered on a farm. Class 0 had their own section. The lower part, on a surfaced track, wasn’t too problematical but as it went into the trees there was a restart, followed by some ruts which provided ground clearance issues for some of the lower slung cars. Jonathan Laver was just able to ease his wheels past the sections end board to gain a coveted Trio award in his MGB GT.

The other Dudwood section was for 7 and 8 and proved a sting in the tail. There was a restart and all the Lieges remaining in the trial failed. It did require a bit of power and there were trees to catch the unwary, as Nick Woolett found when he hit one, damaging a front wing and loosing his gold.

The Dudwood Special Test was the last competitive section. It was fortunate the weather was dry as there was a soft bank to surmount towards the end. As it was there were a few failures including Paul Allaway who lost a gold in his Astra and Barry Clarke who according to the results didn’t!

It was still blowing a gale back at the Bull I’th Thorn finish, not encouraging competitors to stay and chat unless they could find some room in one of the crowded bars. The day finished with club supper in Buxton. This wasn’t very well supported, and with no “words from the management”, provided an anti-climax to what had otherwise been an enjoyable event. It was disappointing not to drive some of the usual sections. However, it was still an interesting route although the very dry conditions didn’t give the sections the bite the organisers would have wished for.

One of the most respected men in the game "Shep" was famous for standing on one leg when the score was 111 or a multiple thereof.

Click Here for Sheps obituary in The Telegraph

Click here for BBC Tribute

Dry Conditions meant plenty of medals

A comparatively easy route and dry weather meant the competitors won this years battle against the club, with a lot of happy competitors winning a medal on the trial and 14 the coveted triple. The organisers had a lot of problems gaining permission to use sections and favourites like Litton Slack and Great Hucklow were omitted. Of the sections that remained Putwell and Bamford were considered much rougher than usual.

It was nice and dry without much wind when competitors gathered for the start at Tamworth Services, those arriving to early getting a nice surprise a few weeks after the event when they got a parking ticket for staying to long! These didn’t include Peter Mountain or Don Stringer as neither were able to take the start.

The run in to the first section at Wigber Low was over good roads. The MCC had made the holding control a time control as well. With the prospect of penalties for early arrival lay-bys and driveways were full of competitors whiling away time, which in the event may have been more disruptive to the local community than an orderly queue on the deserted country road where the holding control was situated! Ross Nuten was one of those parked up with his Dellow Mk2, not waiting but broken down with electrical problems. At the time Ross thought it was a  capacitor issue, but after a reoccurrence on a Falcons Brickhill Trial the following week, it appears the inside of the Aldon distributor had come apart.

Wigber Low didn’t present any problems to the main trial and failed only a couple of bikes in Class 0, including John Turner on his Lambretta Li 150. With such an unsuitable machine John deserved a special medal for finishing the route, despite being rather intimidated by the omni-present course closing car for most of the trial.

Having passed Haven Hill on the way to the first section the route went in a circle before retuning to this rather rutted track across a field before venturing into a small wood. Here competitors on the main trial did a restart and diverted off to the left round a taped off chicane. This was controversial as it wasn’t mentioned in the routecard and in the end those who wrong routed were credited with a clean, including Bill Moffatt in his Reliant Scimitar who would have lost his Triple had the section stood.

Class 0 bypassed Clough Wood, where car competitors had their usual long wait for the bikes to clear, this section always causing them problems. It didn’t pose to much difficulty for the  four wheeled brigade, Nick Farmer in his Cannon Alfa being a notable exception. The engine kept dying despite Nick changing most of the ignition and cleaning out the fuel system. After the event Nick discovered the problem was the ignition switch.

Then it was North up the A6 to the quarry complex where Class 0 had their own nice little section at Deep Rake with a restart before joining the main trial for the Deep Rake Special Test and the Black Harry section where they were didn’t have to do the restart. These sections were quite exposed. A cold wind had whipped up which wasn’t so great for the marshals. These sections didn’t trouble the scorer to much apart for poor Reg Taylor who was penalised for hitting a marker on Deep Rake.

While Class 0 went off for their breakfast at Bull I’th Thorn competitors in the main trial went to Putwell, considered by many to be the roughest hill on the trial. Robin Barlow would certainly agree after breaking the diff on his Dellow Mk2, running in Class 8 because of its OHIV cylinder head.

More coming............

Saw this advertised while browsing the net and at £10 to get, or £9 for us seniors, decided to go along. After a leisurely breakfast at Nettys Cafe Willoughby on the way we arrived to find a two hundred yard queue snaking around the car park as there were only two people taking money on the door. Fortunately it moved pretty quickly and we were inside after about fifteen minutes.

The Queue to get in snaked around the car park

Once inside we found it was quite a big show. Filling the two big inside halls, plus the outside hall and part of the cattle shed! Lots of interesting stuff to see. A lot of clubs had stands, including the Ford Sidevalve Owners and The Ford Y & C Register, both of which I am a member. Two of the Geoff's were manning the Y & C stand and we reminisced about the Tour of Holland when we fist met them.

The Buckler Register had a stand and had a chassis which had been discovered which it was claimed had never been built into a car. Lots of pictures of the cars in use including quite a few trials ones and I recognised Stan Hibberts car which I once towed from the hard shoulder of the M3 down to the comparative safety of the A303

Apparently this Buckler chassis has never been built into a car

Lots of stands in the Autojumble, lots more than Race Retro or Enfield that we usually go to. Actually bought a few things, including a Starrett 1 to 2 inch Mic to go with the Starrett 0 to 1 than I bought in 1963 when I was an apprentice.

All in all a good do and we will go next year.

This was a big event for me. My first MCC long distance event in an open car, my pretty much original 1951 Mk1 Dellow LOC827.

I bought the car from Richard Shirley about a year ago and had a nice autumn driving it around locally and competing on Falcons local Guy Fawkes Trial. This started my acclimatisation to the world of side valve engines, three speed gearboxes, vague steering and mechanical brakes. It went reasonably well apart from having to regularly pour vast quantities of oil into the engine. Getting my new building finished, trialling the Beetle and acquiring a Ford Model Y meant I didn’t get this sorted until the following September. Taking the car on the Aviva Classic (nice event, shame about the insurance) I discovered the little drip from the radiator when I bought the car had turned into a torrent. On with the epoxy radiator sealer. That held it for a while but a test run bought the leak back when everything got hot and expanded. No matter, lots of water and some Radweld in the spares bag in case it got worse and we were off.

I had also fitted a refurbished water pump from Small Ford Spares since the MSA Classic as that had been leaking as well.

It was clear and bright when we set off from Chaos Manor just before 2 am. It was a straightforward run up the A5, with a pause at Hinckley to top up the radiator with about a pint of water. Arriving at the start we enjoyed confusing scruitineer John Blakeley with a different car and soon it was 5.25 and we were off into the night.

Our rate of progress to the first section was rather slower than some of the racers behind us and we were overtaken by at least half a dozen cars before we approached Wigber low where we waited for 15 minutes just before the holding control to avoid booking in early. We let the rear tyres down to 12 psi for the section and left them at that for most of the trial. How nice not to pump up at the top of each hill.

A few words with Chief Official John Wilton at the bottom and we were off. I needn't have worried, the Dellow coped magnificently and we were soon past Don Stringer, who was taking pictures as he hadn’t been able to get his Austin Seven ready in time, but didn’t recognise Graham Austin who was marshalling at the top.

The next section, Haven Hill, was only a few miles away, in fact we had passed it on the way to Wigber Low! Unlike Wigber Low we weren't sure what to expect. It turned out to be a deeply rutted track which caused problems for some of the low slung racers who had zoomed past us on the run-in. No problems for us as we had a straightforward climb. It was more of a problem for the main trial who had to divert off the track with a restart. This was clearly marked when you got there, but caused some confusion amongst competitors and the MCC scrubbed it from the results.

We saw Richard Andrews stopped at the top of the section, pouring Radweld into his Dellows radiator, which was leaking from the same seam as our! We were still resisting the temptation as I had read what was in the stuff and I was concerned that the leaking rad might become even more blocked than it was already, as I judged at least half the waterways were blocked from what I could see with a torch.

There was a bit of a road run to the quarry sections where Deep Rake, a Special test and Black Harry were situated. Deep Rake was a nice little section, with a restart, for Class0 only. No problems but we paused afterwards to let the car cool down and add more water. The poor old Dellow was pretty hot by now, with the temperature gauge just under 100 degrees. That radiator was going too the man on Monday morning!

It was mid morning by now and as came the daylight so came the wind, which was very strong and very cold. The drive to the breakfast halt at the Bull I’th Thorn will be remembered by the difficulty in stopping the car getting blown off the road and the wind blowing my hat away. The latter problem was solved with a change to a flying helmet with a chin strap!

We didn’t check the water at Bull I’th Thorn as the wind was so strong we were concerned the wind would blow the bonnet away! A check at a sheltered spot down the road revealed the rate of loss hadn’t increased and we started to think that we might get the car round the route and drive it home again!

There was no Litton Slack on the agenda but we did get to drive down the approach track and wonder how many trilas cars had gone missing down the ravine on the left!

Calton stopped quite a few Class 0’s who presumably had ground clearance issues. We were fine here, and also at Excelsior where we sailed up as we didn’t have a restart on the dreaded polished stones. By now Class 0 was running towards the front of the field, having missed out several loops, including the long one up to Bamford Clough. However, many of us lost time as we there was a perceived conflict between the route card and the route marking on the way to Moneystones. Like many others we followed the route card and got lost before retracing our steps to follow the route marking which put as right again.

Although we didn’t have to do the deviation at Moneystones we did have a restart, one of those ridiculous short boxes on polished stones. Being clean so far we decided to take no chances and let the tyres down to 9 psi. This was probably a mistake as the car stuck like a limpet and we had to slip the clutch like mad to get away.

We failed the next section at Middleton Steep. Class 0 had an easy route but still a restart. For some unknown reason I put the car in neutral while waiting for the flag and snicked it into 3rd rather than 1st to pull away. I realised what I had done immediately I tried to let the the clutch out, put it into first and pulled away easily. The car hadn’t rolled back and Mike was certain we hadn’t failed. I wasn’t so sure that marshals viewed it that way. When the results came we had ORL against our name. I am assuming that was why we given a fail although possibly they considered we hadn’t stopped inside their very short box.

We cleaned the Class 0 section at Dudwood, which with our ground clearance wasn’t to bad although it was an issue for some of the lower slung cars. Then it was back to Bull I’th Thorn to sign off and a rest at the hotel in Buxton before the MCC supper which was disappointing as it lacked the atmosphere always generated at the Trecarn. It wasn’t that well attended and if the MCC hierarchy were present they were, with a notable exception, adopting a low profile with no speeches etc.

We drove home the next day. I was chuffed to bits to get the car round and home. My first big adventure with such an old car.

 

TO BE CLEANED UP & PICTUES ADDED

Geoff Hodge and Geoff Spencer in their Reg Taylor built, Dellow inspired, RDT

• Pictures by Barry Walker
• More Pictures
• Video by Michael Leete
• Videos by Julian Lack
• Results

Clerk of the Course Verdun Webley was challenged by dry conditions, responding by devising some new variations to the usual mix of Brickhill sections. Peter Morley wasn’t to enjoy them though as the dynamo on his Beetle failed on the way and headed for home while he still had some battery left. Robin Howard got to the venue OK but didn’t get to enjoy many sections as his creaking diff let go on the second hill. Still on the mechanical front Ross Nuten didn’t get much further. His Dellow Mk2 had retired on the Edinburgh with electrical issues. Ross thought a capacitor change had done the trick but it was not to be as the car got a fit of the sulks as soon as it saw a trials hill. It looks like the problem is the bearings on the Aldon distributor as the whole mechanism is slopping around in the body.

The first round of eight hills saw the pattern of the day with Mike Pearson (Dellow Mk2 rep) going clear as did Geoff Hodge and Geoff Spencer in the RDT. Ed Nikel would have joined them but for clipping the nine marker when the door of his Dellow Mk2 rep flew open on the first section. Philip Hyde so nearly joined the elite group in his Liege but clipped the one marker on section seven. Geoff Spencer lost his clean sheet on the second round but Mike and the other Geoff carried their zeros into lunch.

Verdun spiced things up for the afternoon and everyone lost marks. Geoff Hodge dropping 14. He was nearly caught by Philip Hyde who had excellent afternoon. Mike was third and Julian Lack fourth after a good afternoon.

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Test
Test
Test

Why is it that a car that was running perfectly develops a fit of the sulks just before a trial? Didn't get to drive my new car yesterday, or go to clubnight, as it was a day working on the Dellow. Took it for a quick test run and it was running like a pig, well it could highly be descibed as running. Popping, banging and no pull. Changed almost everything, finally a clean up of the points and a new condenser seemed to clear the problem. Still running hot when stopped though and can't get a slow tickover. The two thinhs are ptobably related.

On the positive side the reconditioned water pump doesn't leak and its actually pumping water. I think there was an airlock before. The radiator is leaking again but we are going to take plenty of water and live with that. Got some Radweld onboard if it gets to bad.

Lots of detail work to do today and packing of course. Not to much as theres no room!

th plan is to tweet reports on the way round. Will try to set up a feed to the main page.

Click Here to goto the Desert Island Discs Web Site

Great that its possible to catch up with episodes that you didn't catch live. Not always possible for me to listen on Friday mornings at 09.00 or Sunday at 11.15. The issues has always been that the BBC doesn't own the rights to Desert Island Discs. They remain with the founders, the late Roy Plomley, family and for some reason the BBC had never been able to reach agreement with them over iPlayer.

OK, the ultimate would have been a Desert Island Discs podcast but beggars can't be choosers. Anyway we would have been limited to 30 secs of each bit of music. Having said that you often don't get much more on the radio!

Always been a big fan of the program. I remember when Roy Plomley presented it. A real gentleman who ensured he never overshadowed the guest. Thats more than could be said for Michael Parkinson who was terrible. Sue Lawley's long reign was great for the programme and I was said when she paicked it in. I awlays remember when she had Robert Maxwell as a guest and bought out the full character of the man. perhaps "evil genius" would be fitting.

Now we have Kirsity Young. I didn't like her at first but she's growing on me. I hope desert island Discs goes on forever. If I was on the progrram I would choose:-

1. Boots of Spanish Leather (The Dubliners)
2. Green Onions (Booker T and the MG's)
3. Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits)
4. Red Red Wine (UB40)
5. Lord Franklin (The Pentangle)
6. A Simple Life (Ricky Scaggs)
7. Dance The Night away (The Mavericks)
8. Easy's Gettin Harder Every day (Iris DeMent)
9. Teenage Kicks (The Undertones)
10. Jerusalem (not sure who by yet)

(Ok I know thats 10 but I can't choose eight! Anyway I think that it was ten in the old days)

One Record - Lord Franklin
Book - History of the Brooklands Motor Course by William Boddy
Luxury - An engine and a set of tools to rebuild it with

Having heard a lot about this from fellow Falcons, Martin Cheshire, Arnold Lane, Geoff Hodge the time came to have a go, now I have a suitable car in my Dellow Mk1 LOC 827.

Its not a competitive event, more a run, giving you an opportunity to drive a motor sport venue like Prescott or MIRA, finishing with a couple of laps of the Silverstone Grand Prix circuit. There are also controls in transport related museums and stately homes.

There are lots of start points, from Chester in the north to Dorking in the south. The routes all had a distance of 150/180 miles. However, this year there was also a shorter 80 mile route, starting and finishing at Silverstone itself and this seemed more suitable for LOC 827, especially as Silverstone is only 25 miles from Chaos Manor. We were going to be joined by Mike Hayward, who targeted the event to finish restoring his Sierra XR4i and give it a run out.

The MSA Classic was to be LOC 827’s first run with its rebuilt engine which was only fired up a week before, when all sorts of issues were discovered, including an untraceable oil leak and water leaking from the radiator and water pump.

Come the day the fluid leaks had been reduced, but not eliminated, and we set off having done about 20 miles on the engine which still contained running in oil. It was running much hotter than the old one. Whether this was because of the new temperature gauge, the stiffness of the new engine or the radiator that we now knew to be about 50% efficient I don’t know!

We had a nice run over to Silverstone, stopping on the way when we discovered the electric fan wasn't working. Some fiddling got it away, but it kept playing up all day. Meeting up with Mike and May Hayward in Mikes restored XR4i we had a nice and reasonably priced breakfast before setting off.

Michael and Chris in the Dellow on the Silverstone Grid

We were sent away for a lap of the GP circuit, after being flagged away from the starting grid itself. It was nothing like the circuit last time I drove around it in the late 60’s. Where has the Hanger Straight gone?

Exiting the circuit we had a nice run past Stowe, along the broad tree lined avenue, that I remember as the way we used to go to Silverstone back in the 60’s. Then through Anyo to a control at Broughton Castle. Mike had caught up with us on the way although we became separated when we both missed a turning and chose different ways to regain the route. The route card was in the form of tulips, bound into a very nice book. However, there were issues, such as crossroads sometimes being shown as crossroads and sometimes as turns, which is what went wrong in this case.

We had about half an hour at Broughton Castle. Time for a quick look round the grounds and the cars parked at the control. We hadn’t seen some of these at Silverstone as they were from other routes using this venue as a control.

The Compton Verney Control

Back on the road for the next control at Compton Verney Art Gallery where they were having a 40’s day. Pre war cars were invited right up to the house to join in proceedings for a while. We parked some way away to view proceedings from across the lake. This was an absolutely fantastic view. So beautiful it almost took your breath away.

The final control was at The Heritage Motor Centre at Gaydon where we took time for lunch in their cafe and had a quick look round. Unfortunately the exhibits hadn't changed since we were there with our Ford Model Y for the Old Ford Rally. It was about 40 miles back to Silverstone and we came across a lot more participating cars on the route as more and more of the routes funnelled together. The pace slowed rather as we approached Silverstone as we came across the oldest car taking part, the 1902 Curved Dash Oldsmobile.

Can we get past that Pop!

Arriving back at Silverstone we drove our two laps of the Grand prix Circuit, taking care to stay out of the way of some of the faster cars. The speed differential was rather alarming! We were parked up around 4pm, spending a couple of hours looking at the other cars and socialising before the run home. All in all a nice day, helped by the nice weather. We saw quite a few people we knew which was nice. The car got round OK. Didn’t find to many new issues and although water was leaking from the radiator and the water pump we only topped up with a pint and a half so we should be OK for The Edinburgh Trial. Fingers crossed!

• More Pictures here
• and Here
• MSA Classic Web Site
• Galleries

AUTUMN TRIAL 22^nd Sept 2009

Well it might not have been perfect trialing weather, but it was perfect for a nice day out in the Country Park of Burton Dassett in rural Warwickshireshire. We had a good entry of 38 competitors and in spite of it being the driest for some years, we still managed to get points off most of the competitors.

All in all, it seems you enjoyed yourselves which is what it’s all about, so whether you were a competitor or a marshal, thanks for your support, can’t have one without the other.

The major awards in our two annual trials are for MGCC members in M.G’s. However, because so few MG’s are let out to play these days, we now welcome and rely on entries from our invited clubs that we now include an award for Best Overall Performance (on raw scores), should it not be an MG.

The Allen Cup for best M.G. was won partially by default and with some surprise by novice Richard Dorney with a score of 49 in his Midget. He’s a novice no more!

The Overall Winner was Nigel Weeks in his Imp, who had a score of 22, several points ahead of the next best.

First in class awards went to:-

Class 1 - Neil Mackay (AX); Class 2/3 - Don Skelton (A7); Class 5a – Malcolm Brown (Westfield); Class 5b/6 – Carl Talbot (Buckler); Class 7a/Best Liege – Kevin Barnes; Class 7b – Keith Oakes (Dutton). This is a bit different to that announced on the day, as on further analysis it was apparent that we had enough entrants in classes 5a and 5b/6 to have separate awards.

Second in class:- Class 4 – Steve Courts (Imp); Class 7a - Paul Wheatley (Liege).

The Novice award (on index) went to Julian Lack (Liege); the best Non-Expert was Frank Buckle (AX), there were unfortunately insufficient entries for the Ladies award.

Well done to you all, we will keep you informed of the future of Midland Centre trials scene as since the loss of John Arrowsmith a couple of years ago and the recent surprise death of our Chief Marshal – Malcolm Garratt in June, the Centre is struggling to find interested folk to help organise such events.

A sign of the times perhaps, but it would be a pity to lose our trials after so many years. The Midland Centre’s first trial was in 1937 and they have continued more or less since then, apart from the 1940’s. It may be of interest that CAN May was on the organising committee in 1937 and that the “Grasshopper” Austins triumphed. The Austin 7’s in this years Autumn Trial were part of the Pre-War Austin 7 Club’s Grasshopper challenge. The Allen Cup was first used for the Autumn Trial in 1938.

Brian R. Osborn

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