Beverley & District Motor Club

It was sort of bright and the weather forecast said it would be about 19° C. Time to give the ‘wired shorts’ a final airing. Heading along the A1079 though, the sky just got blacker. Good job I finally got Heepy’s wiper’s fitted yesterday.

The first problem struck near Wilberfoss. I looked in the mirror to see one of the trailer mudguards flapping. The last time it happened one of the metal stays broke off. It flailed around and eventually punched a hole through Heepy’s door! I’ve now got the removal of a mudguard down to about 4 minutes.

York MC had the route very well arrowed to Acaster Airfield, just south of York. Feeling rather silly in my shorts in the rain I quickly dragged on a pair of overalls to unload Heepy. Shortly afterwards Gerald Holdroyd rolled up sporting a pair of shorts with some very lumpy legs hanging out. I let everyone laugh at him without comment. What did concern me was the knobbly tyres his Mini had on. He knew the venue and how loose it was. I began to wish I’d not chucked the Goodyear G800’s out of Heepy the day before (yes, those are 10 inch G800’s - collector’s item these days!). The next problem arose when I fired Heepy up to back off the trailer. Switched on the wipers to clear the screen - nothing. Bugger! Anyway, it’d stopped raining so it’ll get fixed later.

Scrutineering passed without problem. Whilst queuing for documentation one of the Marshals came up and asked me if we usually have white lines marked for the stop-astride’s on Larkspeed events. I said they would help and a few people smirked, then he went off somewhere. He was destined to become very unpopular later on.

That sorted, I went to look at the tests. The surface was a mixture of patchy tarmac on World War 2 concrete and some of this had a complete covering of thick green moss. There were area’s of sandy soil, especially round the 10 foot high mounds of earth which formed part of some tests. Different!

Controversy began at the first test. A few competitors had already walked it when up came the same Marshal who’d asked me about the lines. He proceeded to mark out two lines at each side of a ‘box’ of 4 cones. Someone noticed he was marking out the wrong two lines and they politely informed him of this. A somewhat protracted discussion then took place with said Marshal sticking to his guns that his way was correct. An argument with a Marshal who you may meet later in the day with a watch in his hand is generally not to be recommended. The ugly crowd (sorry guys) relented, at which point I arrived.

Everyone was busy re-drawing the test map the way the Marshal had set it out and then re-learning it. I followed suit and moved on to memorise the 3 other tests which were spread out along a stretch of road.

On the way back we bumped into a late arrival in the shape of Graham Hepworth. He delighted in telling us about test one which had been changed. We told him we knew. Still smiling he told us it had now been changed back again to it’s original format! It appeared the Marshal changed his mind when confronted by a 6’ 4", slightly annoyed Graham Hepworth! For a third time the rest of us traipsed round re-learning test once again. John Taylor (minus Shorty - he was pea picking) was beginning to look troubled, and we hadn’t even started driving the tests yet! It was rather a rather different turnout for North Humberside MC. Regular contender Rob White was joined by newcomer Steven Young in a Mini Special. What I wanted to know was where Andy Beaumont and Danny Robinson were. They promised me faithfully to attend, possibly even with a competing car!

Confusion reigned at the driver’s meeting prior to us starting the tests. The organiser wanted classes 1 and 2 to do tests 1 and 2 twice, then drive tests 3 and 4 twice before handing in our time cards. Classes 3 and 4 would do vice versa from test 3. This instruction completely threw a lot of people. Some we didn’t see for the rest of the day!

The laughs came when it was time to drive the tests and I had to remove the overalls and reveal the shorts. Doh!

Second fastest on the controversial test one got me off to a good start, beaten only by Sheffield’s Ian Robert in his 1293cc Mini. John Taylor took that slot off me on test two, putting in a time 1.5 seconds shy of Dave Mosey who was fastest. Dave had a problem with his usual Mini Special and had brought along a 1400cc Mini saloon to show us how it’s done. The second test was unusual in that the finish was a stop astride as normal, but in reverse! We reckoned the organiser’s had done it to save us having to turn around to drive through to the next test.

Another attempt at these two tests gave me one slower time, with the other only 2 tenths off Dave Mosey’s best. Then we went to tackle tests 3 and 4.

A lot of the moss had been cleaned off by classes 3 and 4 during their runs, but the loose stuff was a real mess after Chris Leaming had been round. His 2 litre rear wheel drive Escort had really churned the sandy soil up. Heepy’s low suspension not really designed for this kind of terrain. Despite these problems I was still clocking up some good times, generally only beaten by the bigger engined Mini’s.

In between tests I’d been trying to sort out the none functioning wipers. Checking the fuses revealed one that had blown. The replacement also blew (it shouldn’t have been a surprise). After using all, but one of my spare fuses I just ripped out what I thought was the culprit - the switch. The last fuse was needed to keep the heater fan working - a vital part of the engine cooling system. Sat on the line waiting to start one of the tests I noticed the temperature gauge start to climb and also the heater fan not working. Just to add to my problems, the damp air we’d had all morning suddenly turned to rain. This meant I had to wipe the windscreen just before each test, get in and do up my belt, then get round the test before the screen got too wet. Thankfully it was on the second run so I knew where I was going - or did I?

Test 8 was the last of the morning and the second time we’d done it. Part of it was a slalom which I admit to not being very good at, and at which John Taylor is. Concentrating really hard to be quick through it, I turned around the top and was working my way back down. Leaving the last cone and heading to finish the last part of the test I felt pleased with my progress so far. Then had a ‘Senior Moment’! Suddenly confronted with a four cone ’box’ I couldn’t for the life of me remember where the hell to go next. Total blank. I could see and hear John Taylor and half a dozen other competitors shouting directions at me. A couple of seconds later the haze lifted and the mental image returned. The test was completed correctly at a cost of some 3 to 4 seconds. The marshal told me that run was shaping up to be a very quick one. John Taylor commented it was unusual to see me blank out. He unfortunately suffered a similar moment and clocked up a washout with a 30 second penalty on the same test. Lunch and the cessation of the rain were both very welcome!

David Mosey was running away with the event even at the halfway stage on 366.3 seconds, I was 13 seconds behind. Ilkley’s Henry Kitching was unsurprisingly leading Class 2, but NHMC’s Rob White wished he’d not got out of bed after a tardy morning. For once, Chris Leeming was getting whupped in the rear wheel drive Class 3 by York M C’s Stuart Carriss in a very smart burnt orange Escort. John Taylor’s washout dropped him to last in our class - he was not happy!

Confusion reigned at the control caravan when I went to collect my time card for the afternoon. At the driver’s briefing in the morning we were told to hand in our time cards after 4 tests in the afternoon so they could keep a tally and cut down the waiting time at the end. All I asked was were we doing tests 9, 10, 11 and 12, then handing in the card or doing 9 and 10 twice. Nobody knew. There were blank faces all round. Happily it was resolved by the time we’d all walked the 4 tests.

As I was sat on the line of test 9, Dave Mosey popped his head in the passenger door (ouch!) for a chat. Fatal Error! Exiting a stop-astride box I headed for another one across the test. Something was nagging in my head (the wife wasn’t there!). Ah yes, I should’ve gone round that cone in the middle first! A quick handbrake detour corrected the mistake, but with the usual loss of many seconds. Dave came over to apologise later for contravening the unwritten rule, don’t chat when someone’s about to start a test.

John Taylor put in some good times during the afternoon to haul in the rest of the class 1 runners. He got the prize for top MCP of the day. Test 10 was another finish astride in reverse. Adele Mosey (wife of Dave) executed a perfect handbrake turn bang on the line without using reverse. John told her it was so good, a bloke couldn’t have done it better! Richard Fish eat your heart out!

Larkspeed co-ordinator Carl Davis was spotted donning something resembling a corset in the afternoon. Gerald Holdroyd said it was a spine support to stop him pulling his back. I said he’ll pull nowt in that!

At the end of the day Dave Mosey took the expected win, his 1400cc’s making 49.5 seconds difference over my 2nd overall. The 1st in class was more important to me for Larkspeed points though. Henry Kitching’s 1275 Metro probably scored the most points however, beating 18 finishers in the larger front wheel drive saloon class. Points are awarded on the number of competitors you beat within your class. Stuart Carriss took the rear wheel drive class 3 award only 5 seconds ahead of the ever spectacular Chris Leeming. With Dave Mosey taking FTD, Ian Robert was able to claim the class 4 win in his 1293 Mini estate.

The controversy continued right to the end as Dave Mosey spotted a rather big mistake when the provisional results were posted up. John Taylor had already departed after a mixed day and, in his absence, the organisers had totalled up his times with an extra 400 seconds added. This put him dead last in class and well down the order for Larkspeed points. Dave subsequently advised the organisers of their mistake which was duly rectified. To date I haven’t spoken to John who’s blissfully unaware of the problem he left behind along with his 2nd in class award.

All in all the venue wasn’t too bad, but more careful use of the tarmac/concrete sections rather than the loose stuff would be appreciated by all competitors on future events.

****************************************************************