TRIAL REPORT
MCC - Exeter Trial
7th/8th January 2005
After a disastrous season in 2004 I'd decided to have a year off in 2005, partly to pursue 'other interests' and partly to try and get the car properly sorted-out as it had never been 100% right since I'd had to replace the engine in late 2003. I know that I've sold the virtues of Marlins for 'wash-and-go' trialling but that only works when the car is basically sorted. By the autumn of 2004 I had begun to realise that I just did not have enough spare time to compete regularly and carry out major work on the car between events. But I was persuaded to enter the Exeter when I found out that my fellow Marlineers were planning to drive all the way up from Devon to the start at Cirencester to get an early number. However my annus-horribilis was set to continue even after I'd sent the Exeter entry form off, with a broken gearbox on the Exmoor Clouds and a bad-tyre-day on the Allen, so I wasn't 100% mentally committed to this year's Exeter Trial even as I set off from home - despite two brand new tyres on the back wheels.
Before continuing, I must record that the comments on the number of Marlin cleans and fails, the Awards list at the end, and the Marlin League, have all been based on the published Provisional Results and there are already a number of known inaccuracies. The only correction I've made so far is to my own result - recorded as a Bronze whereas it should have been a No Award. If anyone else wishes to let me know of any other errors, I'd be most grateful. See Postscript below.
The night run down to the Haynes Motor Museum at Sparkford was as tedious as normal but, despite our early numbers, there was never a queue in the cafe so we managed to keep our seats for most of the two hour stop. The first two sections, Windmill Hill (All Marlins clean) and Gatcombe Lane (All Marlins clean), were as easy as normal so we are able to keep the hood up and the tyres at road pressure until we got to Bovey Woods where we were about to be rudely woken-up. Normans Hump (11 Marlin cleans, 14 Marlin fails) has never given us a problem in the past so we put the hood down, dropped the tyre pressures, and prepared for a straightforward climb. Normans Hump is a dead straight stony forest track with a steep climb, a short 'flat' on a cross track, and then an even steeper climb to the finish. We'd hardly started up the section when it was immediately obvious, in the glare of the headlights, that the restart had been moved up from the cross track to be placed fully on the upper slope. As we approached the restart we could see the problems about selecting a suitable place to stop but, despite trying hard, fell into one of the many holes and that was that. On to Clinton (21 Marlin cleans, 4 Marlin fails), another section in the same woods which had never given us a problem, until this year. Although I should know that these Bovey Wood tracks have lots of grip I obviously had temporary brain-fade, and left the tyre pressures far too low, with the result that we just didn't have the 'grunt' to get going after the restart and recorded our second fail. Not good when tradition dictates that competitors need to be 'clean' at Exeter Services if they're to have any chance of a medal at the end.
We then had a lengthy wait at Waterloo (Section cancelled) before being informed that the section was blocked by a broken-down car and had been temporarily cancelled. Plyford (All Marlins clean) was a joke of section for Classes 1 to 8 particularly as we were then faced with another lengthy wait at Stretes (All Marlins clean) which was apparently due to delays caused by problems with Class 0 cars being unable to climb the track between the section and the special test. Higher Rill (All Marlins clean) was another easy section and we certainly had no problems with Bulverton Hill (2 Marlin fails) despite the restart. I think we were over a hour late arriving at Exeter Services and feeling rather chastened by our stupidity on the two Bovey Woods sections.
Tillerton Steep (20 Marlin cleans, 4 Marlin fails), with its tricky restart on a sloping stone slab, is normally the first of the genuinely difficult sections for Class 7 on the Exeter Trial - last year it failed 12 out of 17 Marlins. Whatever, it seemed easy to us this year and we left the restart beginning to feel slightly better about our performance. Fingle (All Marlins clean) was much rougher than normal but caused us no problems. Wooston Steep (10 Marlin cleans, 13 Marlin fails) is the second of the traditionally difficult Exeter sections and one that we've never mastered for a variety of reasons. Despite my 'crib sheet', and our bad experience at Clinton, I just could not decide on a suitable tyre pressure for Wooston - remember that we were running with a new pair of tyres, of a different type compared with previous events. In the end I made the wrong decision - too low again - and failed to get away from the restart. We were out of the awards with Simms (Restart), Tipley (Restart), and Slippery Sam to go, and in the full knowledge that the Tipley restart is a 'killer' on the Exe Valley Trial. We were not a very happy pair of triallers having our compulsory fifteen minute tea-and-biscuits in the Ilsington Parish Hall on the hill above Simms and unaware that our luck was about to change.
Simms (22 Marlin cleans, 1 Marlin fails) is generally reckoned to be one of the most difficult hills, if not the most difficult hill, on the MCC events and it's certainly the one that everyone wants to say they've climbed. It starts off gently enough, on a sweeping left-hander, then sharpish right and you're faced with an impossibly steep-looking sea of mud, rocks and rock slabs, and a huge crowd of enthusiastic spectators lining both sides. Classes 1 to 6 get a clear run from the start line and try to build up as much speed as possible before rounding the right-hander and attempting the worst part of the section. Classes 7 and 8 get no such help with a restart placed right on the corner and the inevitable decision as to whether to stop low, and try to get up some speed around the corner, or to stop high and facing straight up the slope. There was virtually no queue at the start - very unusual for us but a result of running early - so we had little chance to see how others got on. The only clue was when fellow Marlin driver Howard Stephens shot off the restart line and disappeared to an obvious 'clean' with no sound of wheelspin, reving engine, or spectator applause. Maybe Simms was easier than normal this year. It was our turn. Check everything, await the start signal, off the line, pick a spot on the restart, balance the clutch, wait for the restart marshall's flag, and we were away. It's one of the strange aspects of trialling that sometimes you know you're not going to make it whereas other times you just know that you will succeed. Within a fraction of a second of leaving the restart line I knew this year was going to be different. We flew up the lower part of the main slope, over the dreaded slab, had a brief moment of wheelspin at the very top, then had to remember to stop as instructed just past the Section Ends boards. Wow! We'd cleaned Simms for the first time on the Exeter Trial. Now I'm quite prepared to admit that it was much easier than I've ever known it, but it still felt very good, and wouldn't it have been awful to fail on an 'easy' year?
We savoured our brief moment of glory before sobering-up with the thought of Tipley and yet another restart. But the MCC were feeling kind after moving the restart on Normans Hump and had placed the restart on Tipley (17 Marlin cleans, 6 Marlin fails) in the second-worst section of the track rather the worst section as used on the Exe Valley Trial. We had no problems and were now feeling somewhat relieved that we'd only registered one post-lunch failure (Wooston) so far. The three Marlineers - Ray Easterbrook, Arthur Vowden, and myself - had been travelling in convoy for all of the event and we'd rather unkindly let Ian Walters (Arthur's passenger) do most of the leading so, knowing the way to the finish like the proverbial "back-of-my-hand", I gallantly offered to take the lead. Of course Roger and I then overshot a left turn whilst chatting-away and arrived at Slippery Sam (All Marlins clean) to much good-hearted (at least I think it was good-hearted) banter about it being just as well that we hadn't taken the lead earlier and got everyone really lost. Slippery Sam was straightforward without a restart but it was a bit of a shock rounding the first corner to see the size of the rock blocking half the track. Fortunately there was plenty of grip allowing us to back-off and negotiate the rock at a sensible speed. We took the exit track from Slippery Sam very gently but still managed to get the bottom half of the car covered in red Devon mud.
There were no fewer than 32 Marlins listed in the Entries, 30 in Class 7, 1 in Class 8, and 1 in Class 0, and the final awards tally was:
- Gold: 6 - (In alphabetical order) James Callaghan, Michael Gomm, Bryan Phipps, Howard Stephens, Jonathan Toulmin, Arthur Vowden.
- Silver: 4 - Mal Allen (RB on Wooston Steep), Jim Bounden (Failed Wooston Steep), John Ludford (ORL on Tillerton), Ian Ramsey (Failed Tipley).
- Bronze: 6 - Simon Barton (Failed Wooston and Tipley), Peter Hart (Failed Normans Hump and RB on Tillerton), Bryan Cockman, Jonathan Ellwood, Murray Montgomery-Smith and Paul Royds (All failed Normans Hump and Wooston).
- Finishers: 8.
- Retired: 3.
- Non-Starters: 5.
Results: See the Marlin League updated to include the Exeter results.
Photographs:
Postscript - added 7 February 2005
The publication of the Final Results on the MCC website provide an opportunity to review what I wrote above. Although not recorded in the accepted fashion in the Final Results as published, Waterloo was cancelled as we expected. The real organisational disaster occurred at Simms where there was, apparently, no marshal recording scores above the 'A' boards with the result that the 'A' boards counted as 'Section Ends' for all classes. On a difficult year, with most competitors failing below the 'A' boards, this might have made little difference but on a comparatively easy year, with a much higher potential for failures above the 'A' Boards, this has had a significant effect on the results.
This may all need some explanation for the non-trialling readers. Most trials, in all three trialling disciplines (Classic, Production Car, and Sporting), use the system of sub-dividing a section from 12 points down to 0 points to determine how far a competitor climbed the section before failing. The MCC, however, marks competitors only as 'cleaning' or 'failing' a section, with no scores for 'almost cleaning' a section. In addition, the MCC has its own particular long-standing ethos of "competitor versus the club" rather than "competitor versus competitor". So, to combat any possibility of the club being accused of making sections unreasonably difficult, the MCC also has a rule that if no competitors in a given class 'clean' a particular section then that section is deleted from the results for that class.
In anticipation of this possibility, the most difficult sections on MCC events often have a pair of marker boards with the letter 'A' positioned somewhere below the summit of the section but at a location which a good competitor is likely to reach. Then, if no one in a particular class cleans the section but at least one competitor in that class fails above the 'A' boards, these count as the 'Section Ends' for that class. Exactly this scenario happened on the 2004 Edinburgh Trial when Andrew Martin cleared the 'A' boards on Litton Slack thus ensuring that the section counted for all competitors in Class 7.
Rather the reverse happened on Simms on this year's Exeter. Because the section was comparatively easy, a much higher number of competitors than usual cleared the 'A' boards but we know that a good few of these failed to clear the whole section. Because of the marshalling problem, the 'A' boards counted as 'Section Ends' for this year with the result that all those who cleared the 'A' boards were given the same score as those who cleaned the whole section. Nice for those who failed above the 'A' boards, but slightly galling for those of us who cleaned the whole section.
The Final Results show no changes from the Provisional Results as far as the Marlin drivers are concerned so the Results above, and the Marlin League, stay as originally published. And, for those of you who read the fine print, I am still shown incorrectly as a Bronze in the Final Results but have scored myself as a No Award for the Marlin League.
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