Trials and Tribulations

This month at the request of Madam Editor we thought we would try and provide a little insight into Trialling. It all started in the early days of Motor Sport and was in fact the first attempt at providing off road special stages.

The grass roots entry level is Production Car Trialling - or PCT's for short. Without doubt apart from Autotesting it is the lowest cost form of Motor Sport. It is also a branch which has one of the lowest starting ages. Recent changes have been made so that you can use your "bog standard" road car - ex-club member Tony Coburn won his class in last week's ACSMC round in one of his hire cars. The only modification he made is to buy a new set of tyres. Michael Weeks did even better obtaining a BPI (Madam Editor has been assured that this term will be explained next month!) at this week's ACSMC round in his unmodified Road Going Mini 1275GT. Most serious competitors usually treat themselves to a new set once a year - for some reason Michelins appear to have the edge.

The objective of the sport is to try and get your car as far up grassy or sandy hills without losing traction. This requires good throttle control and is one of the reasons that the sport is ideal for new drivers. It may also be the reason that lady drivers are also often very competitive. I should add that to make it more difficult tyre pressures are limited.

To assist this process cars may contain ballast - which can be as much as 100kg - and should be above the driving wheels. Furthermore depending on the various classes, modifications may be made to the engine, carburation and suspension. Cars run in different classes depending on the position of engine and traction wheels (4wd is not permitted). Class 0 is specifically for un-ballasted cars. The main requirement is to select cars that have plenty of low down torque coupled with a good power to weight ratio - thus permitting the addition of ballast at the correct point. Once set up cars remain competitive for a long time. Our Mini has been used in trials now for over 25 years and is still capable of winning the odd pot or two even at BTRDA level.

Once bitten the next level up is Classic Car Trialling. This branch of the sport is more akin to pre- war rallying and consists of a number of sections - usually up hillside tracks - linked by road sections. The events often permit both motor cycles and cars with modifications being more extreme than for PCT's. Here the power and gearing of the car - as well as reliability - are more important than in PCT's. Out and out specials are also permitted. This is one of the main growth areas of Motor Sport with entry list often approaching 100.

To give some further insight into these events, I have in front of me the Entry List and Road Book for this years MCC Lands End Trial. There will be 371 starters (122 motor cycles and 249 cars) starting from Bristol, Exeter and Basingstoke. The first car leaves at 17:16 arriving at the first test at Sparkford at 20:00. 21 further tests are attempted with an objective of arriving at the finish at Lands End at 13:45 the next day where the last special test is carried out. One last point - cars are expected to climb the hills without stopping and motor cyclists without "footing". Hence like your driving test you either pass or fail!

If this has captured your imagination and you are wondering what car you should use, the first page of the entry list includes: VW Beetle, Austin 7, HRG, Citroen, Yugo, Fiat, Ford Escort, Reliant Kitten, Dellow Replica, Westfield, Buckler, Racecorp, Singer Le Mans, Riley, MG J2, MGTC, Troll, Marlin, MG Midget, Peugeot 205, VW Golf, MGB, Cannon (Why did I ever sell mine?) Ford Y, Mini 1275GT, Hillman Imp, Ginetta, Dutton, Nova, Skoda, etc, etc. The other point of the entry list is that the names keep coming back year after year and that it is a "Closed Event".

The last branch of Trialling is National Trialling - for which you will need a car built in accordance with the specifications given on page 173 of the Blue Book. These are used to emulate Motor Cycles climbing vertical slopes, traversing 45 degree slopes all with 90 degree bends and usually it seems between trees in the mud. I have only been to one event, where it seemed that the engines were permanently revving at 10000 rpm; the tyres were dead flat and the passengers were having to emulate Motor Cycle Side car passengers on an exceedingly bumpy Brands Hatch. If you wish to try this the best entry level is through the 750MC Formula.

So much for the theory, what about reality? This month has seen two outings for Team Fortnight. The first was a return to Great Brickhill. On reaching scrutineering an ominous smell of petrol made us look under the bonnet - where we found petrol pouring out from the carburettor all over the exhaust pipe. A quick examination indicated that the float (we have twin SU's) was full of petrol and had sunk. There being no spares in the paddock, we promptly drilled a hole in the float, sucked out the petrol (it was foul) and using superglue and paper attempted to seal it up. This went OK until just before lunch. Rather than quit at this stage we found that by filling up the petrol bowl we could just manage one hill. We therefore replumbed the fuel hoses and filled up the float bowl each hill - the real problem being that every time we tried this fuel spilt all over the exhaust! At the end of the day and one puncture later we had failed to keep up with Andy Clarke - who ended up with yet another BPI and Arnold Lane - although we were much closer than the last time out finishing 3rd and 5th in Class.

The next weekend was much closer to home (Camerons Field at Dorking) - so this time Michael thought that he would have a play at lunchtime and brought his Road going Mini 1275GT as well. This turned out to be a real blessing in disguise, because once again the carburettors played up before scrutineering. This time they would not let any fuel INTO the carburettor. With the start time looming it was into the "T Car" for the first round. As usual Colin was not having a good day hitting markers and getting himself locked out. However come lunchtime Michael was 1st in class and Colin was tying for 2nd. Michael also had a chance for BPI but he really had to put in a cracking performance and hope that Tim Smith in the Class 0 Fiesta dropped a few marks. As luck (or should I say skill) would have it Michael succeeded in coming out on top to obtain his 1st BPI, leaving Colin with a class win.