Beverley & District Motor Club

Talk about hitting the ground running! 2.00 p m Saturday 11 March arrived back home from a week’s skiing in Val D’isere. Been up since 3.00 a m (C E T) quick peck for the wife (not a bad swap!), out to Tesco for the shopping, ‘a woman’s work is.....’. Then down to the farm for the trailer. Heepy was all prepared before my hols, new ignition, new Yoko’s, all ready to go. I sat down Saturday evening to check the final instructions. The usual (and much loved) venue at Bingley has sadly been dug up so SEOC, after much searching, secured car park ‘D’ at Elland Road F C for the first Larkspeed Championship event of the year.

"Scrutineering 8.00 a m". What! I’d obviously forgotten that bit. "First test 9.15". Is Leeds on C E T (Central European Time)? The other surprise was not seeing two of our newest recruits Oliver Wild and Chris Savoury on the entry list. They’d both come to us from MG Car club a couple of weeks before my hols keen to compete on Larkspeed events. Haven’t seen them since.

Thankfully my bodyclock was still on CET so getting up at 6.00 a m didn’t feel too bad. Got lost in Leeds, but then I always do! Arrived at 8.30. Huge car park with a loose stone covering and a few ‘islands’ of rather smooth concrete, obviously the remainders of demolished buildings. There were three test sites and it was clear who’d set the tests. BIG tests to suit Escorts! But great nonetheless. As usual, a healthy entry list of 51 starters including a team of four from NHMC, John Taylor, Shorty, Rob White and Richard Wood.

The tests were fairly simple and the dusty concrete surfaces seemed to suit me. I managed 4th fastest overall on the first one. Test site three caused some problems during the day, the marshals not really getting to grips with the complexities of each test resulting in competitors getting it wrong and not being penalised. At one point Carl Davis remonstrated with the marshal after we’d both seen a wrong test performed, but he got short shrift. My view is that competitors are not ‘judges of fact’.

A last minute decision by the organisers arranged for classes A and B to start at test one with the remaining 3 classes to begin at test three. For some strange reason this caused absolute chaos all through the day with huge numbers of cars all seeming to be queuing for the same test! I was picking my way through them at one point in the morning when, out of the corner of my eye I saw Rob White’s car hammering towards me. It was then I realised I’d strayed too close to one of the tests and was in danger of being ‘T’ - Boned by ‘Whitey’ attempting a stop astride! I just floored the throttle and got the Hell out of there! My apologies were suitably accepted by him later. After all, I was in a Mini and he had a Mitsubishi Mirage. Goodnight nurse!

As the tests became more complicated, poor John Taylor was getting deeper into the mire. He was spotted stationery on test 11 trying to remember where he was going. Shorty, on the other hand was having a good day and by test 12 was one of only 8 competitors still under 500 seconds albeit about 30 seconds behind me.

As the day wore on the tests got even more complicated, but more fun. Shorty was putting in some cracking times, beating me on a couple of occasions. In the ‘quick’ class, the specials, there was a ding-dong battle going on between my mentor Dave Mosey and a chap who’s closer to my age, Dave Sowman. At the end of it all Dave Mosey took FTD honours on 801.7 seconds, Dave Sowman first in class D and 2nd overall. Tim Sargeant had a relatively easy day in his Dutton, taking class E and 3rd overall from his brother Bob on 842.4 seconds. There’d been close competition between Rob White and John Haygarth in his Nova in class B, Whitey taking the win by only 17.3 seconds after 21 tests. Class C was made up solely of SEOC members all in Escorts (surprise!). Chris Leeming entertaining us all on his way to a fine class win. I was well chuffed with first in class A and 4th overall on 853.1 with Shorty a further 51 seconds behind. John Taylor and Richard Wood still came home 3rd and 4th in our class despite being a long way behind on time. The NHMC team pulled in a lot of Larkspeed points between them though.

All in all it was a great day with good weather and some excellent tests. The venue wasn’t bad , but may prove a problem in wet weather, both for slippery tests and ‘lakes’ dotted around the rest of it. Well done SEOC. Next Larkspeed Autotest is the YSCC event at Skipton on 30 April.

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