Beverley & District Motor Club

What the Dickens.......!

Getting up at 5.55 on the Sunday they put the clocks forward didn’t seem such a good idea when the alarm went off. Hell, it was still dark! Trying to prize open frozen Primera doors at some ungodly time on a Sunday morning almost drove me back to a warm bed. But hey, there’s sporting fun to be had out there!

If I’m batting down a ‘B’ road with a Mini and trailer bobbing along behind me it must be Charles Dicken’s Tool (works?) Store Autotest.

Hartlepool & District Motor Club put on their usual good show with a P A system for the gathering public. The high walkways surrounding the car park creating an excellent viewing area.

Everybody I spoke to throughout the event was having a bad day. It’s that kind of event. The tarmac surface is so grippy that all past experiences go out of the window. The difficulty is stringing 3 good runs together at one test. No giant killing here today - the BTRDA lads were out! Just to make it more interesting, Hartlepool were awarding only 5 seconds for clouting cones or incurring line penalties, whilst washouts would be fastest time in class plus 20 seconds.

Tim Sergeant in his Dutton put together a tidy day for FTD whilst mayhem broke out behind him. Tim probably benefited from Sam Johnston taking an early bath (back to Ireland - and I was moaning about getting up early!). After just one test the car lunched it’s gearbox. Second overall was Chris Atkinson in my favourite car - a bright yellow (Beach) Buggy with a Porsche 911 motor in the back! It’s short twin exhausts are music to any petrolhead.

Top contender and winner at the Leeds Larkspeed meeting Dave Mosey proved that he’s not infallible by getting a washout late in the day. He forgot to go round one of 2 ticket machines which feature in the middle of this venue. Gutted wasn’t the word! The resultant 20 seconds penalty pushed him right out of contention. He pulled some of it back however, but couldn’t better 5th overall. A mere 2.3 seconds covered 2nd to 4th places after 12 tests.

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Only Dave Goodlad (yes that’s his real name) and myself graced Class A. I usually beat Dave when we compete together and he was running at the unloved number one spot. However, running at number 2 I had to sit on the line waiting for him to complete his run. And he looked like he was really flying! It certainly grabbed my attention and jolted me out of the complacency I’d fallen into, thinking I was in for an easy Class win. I kept an eye on the huge scoreboard throughout the day and, fortunately for me, he was obviously not doing as well as I thought. By test 3 I’d already pulled out a 19 second lead and consciously worked on increasing this during the day - just to be sure.

Whilst hanging around at the end of the event to pick up my First in Class Award, Chris Langan, the Clerk of the Course, reminded me that he’d had to amalgamate our class A (1100 cc)with class B (1275 cc). Interesting decision. At the Leeds event the 1275’s had been amalgamated with the Mini specials. Anyway, I’d been beaten down to 4th in class by Paul Swift (yes, Russ’s son), Richard Pinkney, both of whom I’d beaten at Leeds, and Mike Sones. The grippy surface allowing them all to use the extra power from their bigger engines unlike Leeds where it was dusty.

I was disappointed therefore to only score 17 points towards the ANCC Autotest Championship on this event. Maybe Bolton-le Moors on 16 April will give me a better chance.