By Kevin Dyras | Pictures by Kevin Dyras & Dave Govier
The MOC held the first trial of the year at Newmans Quarry, with Steve Burrows and Dave Burns setting out 9 sections while Dave Govier was at Goodwood, sitting in the sunshine drinking champagne. It’s a hard life but somebody has to do it.
Newmans is not the biggest site, but Steve and Dave managed to lay out sections that ran in different ways to those we have used in the past. The ground was completely bone dry, except for one patch of deep, wet mud, which meant they had to think hard to find a way to stop the drivers without making the sections dangerous.
Sunday morning saw 11 drivers, including 3 new members taking part for the first time. A big welcome to Craig Howard, Adam Scott and Andrew Stewart. After the usual scrutineering and drivers briefing the drivers split into 2 groups and set off to the sections.
I had arranged to attend a one-off event with my wife and some friends so would not be able to be at the trial. Unfortunately Jan picked up a chest infection on Wednesday, which got a lot worse on Thursday. She went to the doctors, who put her onto antibiotics and told her to stay at home. By Saturday morning she was really quite ill so we cancelled our day out. On Sunday morning she was feeling a bit better so I decided to spend the day at Newmans instead, leaving her at home with one of our neighbours saying she would be at home all day if Jan needed anything. Two hours later I arrived on site to see how things were going.
The weather was kind to us for once, bright sunshine with a cool breeze, and not the slightest chance of rain. The sections were interesting, with lots of axle twisters, just the sort of thing to give the new members an introduction to RTV trials. Every driver cleared some of the sections and the more experienced drivers cleared most of them, but it was still a very enjoyable event.
After lunch on the sixth section of the day we had our only incident of the day and it involved Craig Howard, one of the new members. Craig was trialling a Land Rover 110 and doing very well considering this was his first event and the size of his vehicle. The section in question was down at the far left side of the quarry, in the deep rutted area where there are lots of opportunity for cross axles. Craig drove the section carefully, and just managed to get a hub through the 1 gate for a clear, when he ran out of axle articulation and stopped. Still, it was a clear so that was good, but as he tried to reverse several of the other drivers noticed his rear drivers side spring had come out. Not a problem said Craig, the 110 has dislocation cones fitted so the spring will pop back in as the axle comes up. As he slowly reversed the watchers on saw the spring was getting trapped by the shock absorber. On closer inspection it was found that the shock absorber has snapped off completely at the top mount.
Andy Springthorpe quickly realised that if Craig moved anymore then there was a very good chance that the top of the shock absorber would punch a hole though the floor and into the seat in which Craig’s son was sitting, not an ideal situation, so plans were formed to make the 110 driveable, step forward Rob Stephenson.
Rob was driving his BMW powered long wheelbase Land Rover recovery truck and it had a complete set of tools and other items. Step one was to unbolt the dislocation cone which meant that the spring would be able to be put back into the correct position. Rob produced a very large crowbar and with Andy putting all his weight against the spring with the crowbar, with a little bit of movement of the 110 the spring popped safely back into the location at the top. Rob then produced a couple of the strongest cable ties I have ever seen and strapped the top of the spring to the mounting to prevent it coming out again. Rob then opened up a socket set and with a battery powered impact driver very swiftly removed the shock absorber from the bottom mounting bracket. This left Craig free to drive off the section. Big thanks go to Rob and Andy for their hard work, and it was nice to see how many other members joined in and helped out.
The last three sections were completed without any incident and, while Steve and I calculated the scores, all the drivers went off and collected the canes in. Prizegiving saw four drivers on perfect all-clear scores and everyone had a very enjoyable day. The next event is at Croft Farm West Malvern on May the 17th, I hope to see you all there.
