Abingdon Motor Sport Carnival

It's certainly an interesting way of looking at it! Over ten thousand miles of action and not so much as a cut finger, broken nail or chipped tooth. In fact the only real ailments reported during the entire weekend were hangovers and sunburn.

The Carnival is an entire weekend of motor sport put together by Barry Guess and his team drawn from Sutton & Cheam, Farnbrough & District, Southern, Windsor, Oxford and Craven motor clubs.

The team arrived on the Friday to start work on the infrastructure of the event. Rally HQ was set up, the marquee which was used for scrutineering, sprint documentation and which also housed the bar was erected. Fences were taken down, mobile toilets positioned and catering areas set up. With the assistance of the army the two sprint courses were laid out using some of the 3000 cones which had been brought to the site.

Saturday morning saw the arrival of the 120 competitors in the sprints, who were quickly processed and sent off to start their two practise runs down the Abingdon and Bentley courses. Whilst the two sprints were in action, the rally stages were being set out under the guidance of Simon Marks. Once again the army assisted with two

with two transporters for the cones and straw bales. With the longest stage being some 12.5 miles long it was a mammoth task, but was completed on schedule.

Whilst all this was going on Windsor Car Club were holding a championship autotest, the third of the disciplines being contested over the weekend.

As the events came to a close the barbecue run by one of the charity benefactors of the weekend, Stowford House, began.

Following the awards presentation, the competitors for the following days rally arrived for scrutineering.

With many marshals and competitors taking advantage of the free on-site camping there was soon a party in full swing!

Eight demanding stages were on order for Sunday, combining long very fast straights combined with tight twisty sections where care was definitely required!

Despite the need to retrieve broken down vehicles and make the necessary alterations to stages during the day the event finished at it's scheduled time and with the assistance of many of the marshals and competitors the course markers cleared up in record time. Reinstating the fences and a final clear up was carried out the following morning to leave the venue as they found it.

Plans are already being made for next years event which will probably include 3 sprint courses and some more revisions to the layout of the stages.