The Axa Classic

Formerly known as the Guardian Classic, this year's event had attracted in excess of 1200 entries who would start either on Friday, Saturday or Sunday from 14 points around the country to converge on Millbrook on Sunday afternoon.

I had been summoned by The Blue Hand Bag (Annie Roden) - Deputy Clerk of The Course, running the Goodwood to Cheltenham route, to drive Neil Roden on the route as course opener.

Chrissie Chorley had also volunteered her services to assist with signing on. What we weren't told until it was too late to back out was that we had to be at Goodwood at 06.30 on the Saturday!

The first section of some 65 miles headed generally west heading for the first halt of the day at Beaulieu motor museum. We travelled via South Harting, but did not use the old Ditcham Hill Climb, skirting it to the south, before heading west again to the New Forest.

The time schedule we knew was going to be a problem as the event took in some 42 miles of the New Forest with it's 40 m.p.h. speed limit and took entrants right through the middle of Lyndhurst on a Bank Holiday weekend! Entering the New Forest we traversed Dave Walton's favourite road, Rhinefield Ornamental Drive arriving at Beaulieu to be greeted by Ray Tyler and his crew of marshals.

We only stayed here about 15 minutes before heading off to Bowood House the second check point, travelling via Wilton where we stopped briefly for coffeee.

Having checked that the marshals were in place, we contacted Annie to tell her that all was O.K and check what her plans were.

Annie had finished at Goodwod and was en-route to Bowood, Unfortunately the Bank holiday traffic meant that the journey would take some 3 hours.

From Bowood we meandered through the Cotswolds finally arriving at Cheltenham at 3.30 pm, the due time for the control to open, in the pouring rain which had started about 30 minutes earlier. Contacting Annie, we were dismayed to find that only 10 cars had left Bowood and that most had not even arrived. I said the time schedule was tight!

About 6 pm a very wet Annie arrived, having been standing in the middle of Bowood Estate when the heavens opened. Finally at 7.30 pm we had accounted for all the cars and been joined by Bognor Regis motor Club's Alan Tice, who was acting as course closing car.

228 miles was about 50 miles too long for an enjoyable day's drive and the time schedule too tight to allow the entrants to enjoy their visits to the two check points.

Having checked into a rather strange hotel, which seemed more akin to a nursing home, we made our way into the town centre and at the 3rd attempt found a restaurant which served fabulous food and a rather nice red wine!