An Exmoor Adventure

Generally I don't write first person accounts of Trials as I think "Triple" contains more than enough reports of "....and we lost the Milky Bar under the seat on Sugg Lane" variety. However, I hope you will appreciate this report is an exception as it's about my day passengering with Dudley Sterry on The Exmoor Trial.

Dudley Sterry and Michael Leete put on their best grins for the photograher

Were's Judy? Would Exmoor winner Adrian Dommett have got so close to that goarse bush if it had been his side?	The Jones family lift a wheel as they tackle the special test at Lower Molland
Bill and Carol Foreshew at speed on Sepscott 2	Peter Fear crests the rise on Floyd's bank.

I had my first experience of trialling in an open car when I passengered Dudley Sterry on The Exmoor. The drive through the breaking dawn from The New Forest up to Barnstaple was of course an experience in itself. This I will write about later! All the class eight’s were running together at the head of the field and we were third car on the road. This meant that apart from a handful of class eight’s and the occasional late biker we saw very few other competitors all day.

Jenny Wren was the first section and we had a long wait, first at a holding control, then at the foot of the section itself, as the bikes were having major problems in the slippery conditions. We heard that Adrian Marfell, who is the current man to beat, didn’t get off the re-start, but when our time came we did. Although all the sections apart from Beggars were new to me none of them held any surprises for Dudley. He knew the class 8 restart was going to be on some slippery slate. His advance strategy was to trickle off, that’s exactly what he did and it worked!

The Hallsinger test was a blast forward, then back and then forward again. Dudley directed me to hang on tight and hold the gear lever in place while we were reversing. All this while trying to keep clear of his flailing arms as they sawed away at the wheel trying to keep the little car in a straight line as we rocketed back and forth. While we were waiting our turn I saw Tony Young knock a marker flying, which according to the route card meant he should not have had a time recorded, but looking at the results he got away with it.

Sepscott 1 and 2 and Snapper 1 and 2 were in a wood and neither posed any problems for Dudley’s J2 although Snapper 1 was a bit hairy where the track was washed away. The worst bit was after the section ends and I should think the lower classes would have had problems getting out the top.

Riverton was reserved for Solo’s and Class 8. This was because the track was badly eroded. The J2 didn’t have any problems although if we had stopped it would have tipped on it’s side we were at such an angle.

We lost our clean sheet on High Bray. It looked easy from the start line but then I couldn’t see what was around the corner! We got of the re-start OK and Dudley tried to drive up the left-hand part of the track, avoiding the "Grand Canyon" on the right. Unfortunately we didn’t quite have enough momentum and the rear slid into the canyon and that was that, well after a spirited attempt to "burn-out" it was! Adrian Dommet went clear and that decided the result of the trial as Adrian Marfell failed to get his Fiat engined rail off the restart.

We were back into another wood at for Pheasants Hill and Lower Mouland, both of which we cleaned easily, although we got a flat front tyre and had to change the tube, which is nice and easy if you don’t have to break the bead! Beggars was a no problem at all. It looked completely different to The Lands End, when the restart area is rough and rocky, whether with doctoring or because it gets cut up by the earlier numbers, or both!

We got a route amendment at Beggars, substituting Lyncombe Bridge with Scoresdown (anybody know why?). This was nice and easy which is more than could be said for the last hill at Floyds Bank, a grassy weave amongst or through the gorse bushes. The J2 didn’t want to steer properly and Dudley couldn’t get it straight enough to attack the last bank so we dropped another couple of marks. I would think this would have been a nightmare for the lower classes.

John Lees came over for a quick chat at the finish then there just remained the matter of the drive back to The New Forest to pick up my Volvo to go back to Bedfordshire. I got home at 9.30 pm having left at 2.45 am. 600 miles in all, two thirds of it in an open car with no hood and no windscreen! A long day but what a fantastic adventure.

I will be honest the trial went much as I expected. Dudley is a very skilled and competitive driver. The car performed magnificently. The engine is beautifully tuned and will pull from almost nothing well into the high fives. The thing that really surprised me was how well it went on the road. Like many of you I guess I have been overtaken on the A303, the little J2 flashing by in a red blur, but this didn't prepare me for just how well it performs on tarmac. The engine is extremely tractable at low revs and is very smooth as the speed increases to far beyond what the boys in blue are prepared turn a turn a blind eye to. We went along the A35, which has got a lot of long sweeping bends that the J2 handled with ease. Later Dudley showed me the modern suspension tweeks, all carefully hidden away so they don't disturb the period look.

The class eights are certainly a varied lot. Some of them look a bit rough and there are some pretty weird contraptions that don't look particularly road worthy no matter how well they go on the hills. Like Dudley I am anti-trailer and my view is that classic trial  competitors should drive their cars to and from events. If this were ever to become a rule I am sure some of the stranger machines would disappear which (imho) would be good for the image of the sport.

Exmoor Trial Results

Overall Car	Adrian Dommett (Ford 100E Special)	0
Class 1	P. Allaway (Vauxhall Astra)	34
	D. Symons (Citeron AX)	58
Class 2	Bill Bennett (MG J2)	22
Class 3	Dave Turner (BMW)	7
	C. Jeffery (Escort)	9
	Harvey Waters (Escort)	10
	Emma Flay (Escort)	11
Class 4	Giles Greenslade (VW Beetle)	13
	Bill Rosten (Imp)	25
	Jim Scott (Sunbeam Stilletto)	32
	J. Mildrew (Skoda 136)	45
Class 6	T. Johns (VW Beetle)	12
Class 7	Arthur Vowden (Marlin)	2
	Roger Ugalde (Allard J2)	5
	Roger Bricknell (Vincent)	11
Class 8	Tony Young (VW Special)	4
	Dudley Sterry (MR J2)	5
	Peter Fear (Dingo)	5
	J. Blight (TKP)	8
Overall Bike	C. Lidstone (Yamaha Serow)	2
Class A1	R. Gerring (Kawasaki KMX)	5
Class A2	S. Sandford (Hind XLS)	16
Class B	Mike Maddocks (Honda XL500S)	28
Class C	Tom Beckerleg (Areial)	16
Class E	M. Crocker/T.Griffiths (Yamaha XS)	11