Chairmans Ramblings – November 2019
October has been a fairly busy month for us. We went out and marshalled on Dave Bardwell & ?? 12 car only just getting to the start in time because other road users had slowed right down because it was raining and there are limited opportunities to overtake – especially when it is a queue of cars. Dave had moved himself from the normal car park to under the well lit canopy – not only did we stay dry but could also see what we were doing – a very sensible move. We did a secret check just before a passage control which had some competitors saying we were in the wrong place ( HOW DARE THEY! ) and then went on to do a couple of TC’s.
The following Wednesday Peter Rushforth ( who I did Monte Carlo with 30+ years ago) phoned me up to see if I would do a Basingstoke 12 car that Friday with him as his normal driver couldn’t. The start was at Greenham Common which is to the east of Newbury and just on map 174. He had a Rover 25 for us to use so I met him at Lambourne in order to drive the car just to see what is was like – ideal 12 car vehicle except for that fact that I forgot it was front wheel drive. Basingstoke 12 cars very similar to ours except they reverse seed so that marshals don’t have to be at the controls too long. The 1st section was via spot heights with the last one being 63 of which there were 3 . We visited them all, picked up a code board in the next section and dropped 12 mins – not a good start! Lots of long way around triangles but I couldn’t get the car to handbrake properly until the 4th attempt when I remembered that you do not dip the clutch on front wheel drive but then I have only ever driven a rear wheel drive in anger when you must- silly me! We ended up 4th out of 11 starters so not too bad after all.
An early start was necessary on last Sunday as Jan & I went marshalling on The Exmoor Targa. It was very heavy rain – we got soaked. There was 2 full DDMC crews out, Nick Burton & Craig Rodford and Jeff Fields Rob Smithson and 3 part DDMC crews Paul Freeth & Lizzie Pope, Brendan Wellman & Gavin Bull and Roger Fletcher & Derek Mines. We did the start on test 1 & 2 in the morning along with Dave Hiscock who we collected by arrangement at signing on. I signed the time cards, Jan did the clock and Dave the check sheet. At the end of the morning Jan’s big green waterproof coat was now reddy/brown from all the mud splashed up as the cars left the line.
In the afternoon the test was reversed but we were still going to do the start. After the course closer went in we drove round to the finish along with the Test Commander not cutting across the test in anyway but W/D to the finish getting funny looks from the marshals. This was because competitors were still coming through – oops! At long last it stopped raining only for the cloud to come down sometimes and engulf the test. Dave & I swopped round – he did the time cards but we thoughtfully left Jan with the clock as she was already covered in mud. A couple of cars jump started which we recorded on our check sheet but although we went home via the finish ( to drop Dave off ) we didn’t stay long enough for results to see if they were penalised. All in all a good but very wet day. How club members faired will be elsewhere in the mag.