SOWERBY OR NOT SOWERBY

Steve, the Clerk of the course for Sowerby, has failed to do a write up
on the event. Lynne has not thawed out from the trial, so it is left to
me to give you an account of the build up to the event.

Firstly, as I write this, the temperature outside is in the 70's. At
Sowerby it was wet, windy and down in the 40's.

The travelling arrangements to get to Sowerby on Saturday
actually went to plan for once. Steve had the horsebox on the back
of the big van and I pulled the trial motor on the back of the now
repaired V6.

Barring a minor detour in the village of Sowerby the journey was
uneventful, although Steve lost traction at the beginning of the track
up to the site and Dave McGiven's 110 was called upon to drag Steve
up to the site.

Steve gave out his instructions for the day telling everyone to
keep well away from the nearby house and to remember that it was
the expert/novice and ladies trial, so no silly drops or wall of death
jobs. Now where's Boss?

Dave, Carol, John and crew set off loaded with sticks and headed
for the water hole (they really love playing in mud) whilst Steve, young
Steve (new pit crew member), James and myself headed into the quarry.

Steve was in good form and we soon had two sections sorted out.
They just needed driving and seeing as how I had planted my motor
on a big rock,again we needed the help of Dave's 110 to tug me off.
Still no sign of Boss.

Hark". Boss arrives with Dean. It must be midday. Not stopping
long, not going to the pub for lunch - what a wet blanket. He has all
on to get out of the motor cos it's muddy. Dean loads up with sticks
and off they go to a dry part of the site to set out!

Lunchtime and we leave Dean to cope with Boss whilst we go
and dry off in the Travellers along with the others. Time to tot up how
many sections we have got in:- Us 3, Dave and crew 2, Boss 2. Not bad
we might get back for the second half of the cup final yet.

Ad Dave and crew are leaving the pub, we are still waiting for the
lads to finish, a Landrover pulls up and has words with Dave and John.
Don't recognise the motor - must be a new member come to lend a
hand. Dave then re-appears in the pub. "That was the guy from the
house. He's not too happy. He's trying to sell his house and wants us
to cancel. I said tliere was no chance, so he's on his way to see Fenella
(the Landowner)".

Back on site. The rain has now abated and the sun is threatening
to shine. Boss and Dean are still busy banging in sticks as though when
was no tomorrow.

The man from the house arrives and after a few minutes discussion
with Steve a solution to the problem has been sorted and the event was
still on.

Three more sections are concocted in the far quarry without too
much brain power which then left us with - now let's see - eventually
we agree that we have put 12 sections in. Boss says that 2 of his will
reverse and we feel that there is at least one other that will reverse, so
we call it a day.

Boss and Dean disappear and Dave and crew also head for home.
Steve tlien decides to have a look at two of Boss's sections that we
have not driven. "I think it starts here". "No it can't - it must be here'
"Well what's this gate for?" "Perhaps it goes this way round then".
"No, they'll never get up there!" "Oh forget it, we'll wait till he puts
the socks on tomorrow, then drive it".

Locked up, loaded up and we head back to base. Once there,
Poseur (remember him) arrives asking when I'm going to do a job for
him. Not tonight - it's 5.30, just time for something to eat, and a
shower before we are all due out at 8.00 for a bit of a do.

Sunday morning (7.30) comes round far too early after a late
night and a few too many beers. We get to the site in good time, but
already there were people there. Steve delegated sock duty and told
me to get the motor scruballed for Lynne. Boss arrives with Jane and
Dean (who are to enter his V8) and he quickly points us in the right
direction with regard to his sections. As always they turn out to be
fine, so by 10.30 we have 11 sections ready for action, 1 in reverse
and 3 sorted out for altering at lunch time.

The bad weather had not deterred the competitors and the 49
entries were well into the sections when 1 saw a motor on it's side.
"Best have a look at this" says Steve. A wrong line around a hillock
and into a bomb hole near the end of section 7 had resulted in the
roll. This was repeated by the next motor and Steve was considering
shutting the section down. I was responsible for this section and had
been driven by myself and Boss without any problem. Steve decides
to keep the section open and positions himself on the top side of the
hole with the intention on stopping anybody going too far and rolling.

The next few motors either fail to reach the hole or clear it with-
out any trouble. Then the Rev To Wreck brigade arrive. Nick Harrison
let loose as he approaches the hill and as he rounds the bend Steve
turns white, turns tail and exits stage left, shouting "STOP STOP!!"
No chance, over goes the Range Rover with the engine still doing about
6000 revs. Later Nick reveals that his foot had got jammed on the
accelerator and was annoyed at getting 2 points. Thankfully there were
no other casualties at the hole. Experts 3, Novices 0.

The sun did shine, eventually, towards the end of the day and with
the help of various people all the sections were collected in before the
prizes were awarded. Thanks to all who brought the sticks in - it was
appreciated.

Thanks to all the marshals who braved the bad weather and the
snack van for providing them with sustenance at lunch time.

Congrats to all the prize winners and especially to the Novices
who beat their so called experts.

Rob

LADIES DAY OR THE EXPERT/NOVICE

Joy and I signed up 23 teams of 2 and 3 extra ladies, which was an
excellent turn out despite the bad weather. Hail and rain showers could
be seen following the sunny intervals across the hillsides towards us at
Sowerby.

The sections were divided up into the easier ones in the morning
so as to give the novices confidence and then a bit trickier after lunch.
It was good to see that no expert managed to clear all the sections and
that a novice equaled the best expert with a score of three. 8 ladies
entered the ladies section . . . where are they all hiding? (Though I
must admit here that the weather would have put off most, as even I
was tempted to do a 180° turn as it hailed hard on the climb up to
the site).

It's hard trying to see without my glasses, but it must have helped
as I finished the day with 10 points. Dave got 18, making a team total
of 28 and 3rd overall. Thanks for lending me your motor again. If you
have read the Lines report you'll have found out the damage he'd had
to repair. I took the V8 power easy this time and we ended with no
more than a puncture, discovered while queueing for the last section.

Because every motor was double entered it took a long time to
process the results - apologies for that, as we had to wait for the
quadruple entered group of Phil Hargreaves, Andy Bury and their
novices.

The 1 st section we did was a lovely muddy one - turn off the fan
before entering the pool and 2 clears obtained. We then went off to
find some sections without people on them and came across Greg and
Russell looking after a nice little section with a tight finish - thiere were
a few of them designed to teach "one hub through". Other sections in
the top quarry area followed and then ended up doing the last three
sections before lunch on the hillside. In trying to go along one track I
was urged to reverse to give a pull to a 'motor' who had misjudged the
speed needed and the result an expert on his side. There was another
roll in the same place again by an expert showing how not to do it.

A quick lunch and chat to Lynne Oliver and then back into the
driving seat covered in yet another hail shower debris. Some excellent
sections and the thought required gave a range of scores. All in all a
good day - thanks to those who had set out on the Saturday and Rob,
Steve and Boss for organising on the day.

See you at the next event.

SARAH
P.S. Thanks to the Snack Van - Pete Barber for providing all marshals
with a cuppa and buttie. Thanks to all 16 who marshalled in such bad
conditions.

Dear Rob,
Just a few lines about the Sowerby event on 10/5/92.

We managed to arrive five minutes late as per usual. The weather
didn't look too bad and there was the customary shortage of marshals.
This led to myself and my two sons (Lewis and Paul jnr) being enlisted
as soon as we arrived. Ray asked if we would do section six down the
hill and off we went.

What did I say about the weather? No sooner had we arrived at
our section than the hail storm began. There were no motors in sight,
so we returned to the parking area and took refuge in our trusty steed.
After some twenty minutes spent defrosting, we decided to brave the
elements and return to our post. The hail ceased falling and motors
began arriving thick and fast. Not unreasonably the drivers were quite
keen on doing sections 6, 7 & 8 one after the other. No problem,
except there were no marshals on 7 & 8. Ray appeared and said he
would try to get some help. In the meantime we soldiered on. This
was my youngest son's first attempt at marshalling and he wasn't too
sure on some of the finer points, however being a bright lad (takes
after his dad) he soon picked it up. He was quite perturbed at one
stage at what he believed to be foul language used by one of the
drivers. It turned out the culprit was none other than Nick Harrison,
who quite innocently was shouting "SHUNT". Paul will be having his
ears syringed shortly.

Things were getting quite hectic when the promised help arrived.
In fact I had just decided that a quiet nervous breakdown was in order
and had begun to enjoy the wave of panic and delirium which washed
over me. None the less the assistance was greatly appreciated. Thank
you gents (sorry 1 do not know your names).

Weather conditions apart, the afternoon was uneventful except
for an incident involving a small child. Mid-afternoon, I saw two ladies
who were having a chat whilst watching four or five children playing
nearby. This was fine until one of the children wandered onto a

bracken covered bank which formed part of the section. My heart was
in my mouth, fortunately the driver saw my frantic waving and stopped
I am certain that had the child gone unseen, we would have had a fatal
accident on our hands. Please, if you bring young children to events,
keep an eye on them at all times. It would be tragic if a child was
injured or killed because of lack of supervision.

Paul Underhill

PITS GOSSIP

Not very good weather at  Sowerby  for collecting gossip.

Russell Holdsworth came up on Saturday afternoon to offer his
help. His white 90 sporting a crumpled back corner after a nasty "turn''
on the M62 when the trailer, loaded with a car, decided it didn't want
to leave Yorkshire and made him turn round near the top of Windy
Hill without changing carriageways.

Dean, usually a speed merchant, said that he enjoyed the trial, but
would not say what was going on in their garage!

John Firth and Ann had problems with the ex Phil Baily 80". The
engine kept cutting out for no reason, causing them to retire.

Lynne soon realised that my motor is not designed for those who’s
bums are near to the floor. On the first section the climb out of the
water pushed her back into the seat and her feet were unable to reach
the pedals!!

Brian Bowman has sold his motor to Paul Goodwin. He says he
will still come and marshal when he is not on holiday or golfing.

Steve should have the yellow peril back shortly as he has another
engine and gearbox lined up to replace the well worn units that are in
at present.

MAY DAY WITH LINCS

The Lincs Land Rover Club event held near Scunthorpe over the May-
day holiday weekend was much too good to pass by without mention,
so, just in case no-one else writes about it, I shall put pen to paper for
the very first time.

Four adults and three children sharing a two berth caravan even
for just two days seemed like it might be too much of a squash, but
we managed quite well with two inner tents in the awning, and eating
meals on a sort of rota basis.

Peter, Claire and I had arrived on Saturday night to find Michael,
Heather and children with the caravan set up and the kettle on ready
for our arrival. Whilst Michael and I put up the awning, Peter went to
have the motor scrutineered for the trial on Sunday. After what seemed
like hours he came back with tales of work that needed to be done to compete

 in future events, but having passed for now.

The following morning he returned from a walk round before
breakfast, to say "I've got to have a navigator - I'll never find my way
round the sections otherwise". I quickly volunteered, checked with
Heather that she didn't mind too much having one extra child to look
after for the day, and got ready to go.

Peter was right - they were VERY long sections. Between us we did
remember where each one went, though some of them took ten minutes
to walk, and other competitors were seen to "finish" at completely
wrong gates. Two sections had very steep descents after the 12 sticks,
others some rather strange "Wall of Death" arrangements half way round
some had both!

A small mistake in choice of gear on our second section gave us
an unwanted five points - coming down a hill Peter decided to change
from second to first gear, but for some reason reverse got in the way,
and we found ourselves going back up the hill. However, the rest of
the 12 sections produced eight clears and a total of 12 points, which
together gave us a third in class. Other Pennine successes in the trial
included Bill Leacock, Gary Docherty, and first overall for Chris
Chesters, with only one point if I remember rightly.

The Comp Safari was due to start about 8.30 p.m., so after the
addition of headlights and another, fairly short, trip to scrutineering,
it was time to walk the course. This was said to be four and a half miles
long, so Michael and I were quite pleased with a finishing time of one
hour four minutes (fastest time of the evening at that point!) Later on,
after hearing how some drivers were getting quite lost on the course,
we were very pleased to have spent that time walking around.

Gary apparently missed out 10 gates in one run, and was given, I
think, a two minute penalty, and on another run just couldn't work
out where the course went, until the next driver came up behind him,
and gave him someone to follow! I'm told that John Firth was follow-
ing a line of arrows and suddenly realised it was the white sides of them
he was looking at rather than the yellow - as far as I know he didn't
meet anyone coming the other way.

The ground was mainly very dry and very dusty - making it very
difficult to see in the dark from one set of arrows to the next, especial-
ly the parts where short detours had been placed in the middle of other-
wise fast straights. A great deal of shouting of directions on my part
seemed to go along the lines of "LEFT - I think", or "Can't see any-
thing - keep going". Talking to others the next day however proved
that we weren't the only ones feeling totally lost on an Industrial Estate
somewhere in Scunthorpe.

During the last two runs the motor became rather noisy due to lack of

silencer although we had no idea until the next morning that it was
actually missing (mainly because no-one looked). John Firth came to
the rescue, loaning us his trialler to take the silencer from, as there was
no sign of ours out on the course; we were able to repay him later by
lending him a diff so that he could keep running.

Some changes had been made to the course since the previous
night, putting in more deviations from the fast straights to slow us
down. Our first run of the morning was a little slow, but from then
on the times became faster and faster, resulting in second in Class 2
for Michael, with very fast times on the last two runs. This had to be
one of the best comps we've entered, with four night runs and eight
day runs, on a very good course.

We had a great time, all of us, the trials sections and the comp
course were brilliant, the children enjoyed riding in the bike trial (their
first attempt), well worth the journey. Thanks to the Lincs, club for
putting on the event, and to all those who helped to run the event.
We'll be looking out for it again next year.

Fiona Urwin

MAY DAY WITH LINCS TWO (THE SEQUEL)

(Actually it's second because Fiona's was already typed out. Ed)

What a weekend!! Hot and dusty, but a very good event over the
May Day weekend. The site was through an Industrial Estate at
Scunthorpe to the slag dumping area from the steelworks. This made
for a lunar like landscape in places, but there was a good variety of
surfaces, as the campers found.

When I arrived there were a lot of caravans already there and the
rally reception warned that finding somewhere soft to pitch the tent
would not be easy - he was right .... large stones, spare wheels and
ramps eventually held the canvas down. The RTV was going on and I
missed seeing any of that as it took so long to pitch camp. I did drive
some adaptations of the RTV sections as Lines put on a Ladies trial
on the Saturday night -just 6 sections, but 16 entries gave the spec-
tators something to watch. I entered in Dave Barker's V8 88" trialler
and enjoyed myself. It was the first time I'd driven it and so found it
a little odd after the 80" with its 2 litre engine. Still 1 enjoyed the
sections and it was nice to be behind the wheel again after 5 months.
I must thank Stuart Ainsworth at this point for standing in some
strategic spots to mark where the canes were as some were well hidden.
He made a good navigator on the Sunday and didn't look too shaken
by the experience at the end of the day, despite the V8 power having
gone to my head and resulting in one or two spectacular climbs! This
resulted in the trial section 11 finish on a climb, costing a new half
shaft and 9 cogs on the front diff crown wheel - sorry Dave. (This
upset cost him 9 points as he lost his way on the last section. I cleared
it!)

The trial itself was 12 sections with the 62 entries split up into
5 groups. Lots of marshals meant we often had 2 motors on the section
at once, but getting a doubled entry motor back to the starts wasn't
always easy. The trial was a fair one - hard in places, diabolical in
others and easy at some moments. This was reflected in the drivers'
scores at the end of the day.

Dave 'lent' me his motor again and the running order at the start
of section one meant he went before me. Bad luck for me as he cleared
this section, but broke the front prop on reversing down the finishing
hill. 2 wheel drive meant I didn't get over the first rubble heap and
ended up joining Keith Wilson with a 10 on the card. Dave did section 2
in 2 wheel drive, but then the kind offer of a spare prop from a Lincs
driver was taken up when another motor in the group suffered a king
pin go and a wheel off, so blocking the course. We took advantage of
this to go and replace the prop and joined the group for section 3.
When I'd driven the section I was taken off by the steward of the event
and did section 2, but due to another group churning it up I got a 7.

By the end of section 4 I'd picked up a second 10 and a 4, so
with that score I just relaxed and enjoyed the day and so got a couple
of ones and clears for the rest of the card - just shows you! Other
motors did a lot of damage - 2 other props went on their 1st sections
and there were other casualties. I heard of only one roll over and Lines
insist on re-scrutineering any vehicle doing so - Pennine to follow suit?

I saw Peter Urwin on his way round and luckily for Michael
Chaloner he did no damage, as Michael went on to do 4 runs on the
night comp and 8 the next day to get 2nd in class. Chris Chesters had
a good trial (1st overall with 1 point), as did Bill Leacock and Gary
Docherty. Peter ended up 3rd in class.

The comp was a course of about 4'/2 miles with long dusty straights
and nasty slow sections, but speeds were fast with Tom Boydell going
under the 8 minutes - this meant that the course had added chicanes
and slower sections introduced to keep the speed down to below the
40mph allowed by the RAC.

The course was kept open as much as possible and all the motors
had finished their runs by 1 1.45 pm. When walking the course the next
day I was glad I wasn't driving, as I didn't like the drop off one of the
ridges. Time penalties were awarded for missing "gates", but it was
difficult to see where to go at times and Gary Docherty said later that
he'd waited for a following motor to catch up so that he could follow
as he was well and truly lost in the dark. Gary got 3rd in class.

A good event and even a pot to take home. as 1 got 3rd in the Ladies trial.

(Thanks Ann Boyes (1st) for taking it to Hameldon for me
to collect). However despite the dust, lack of tent pegs, front diff &
prop damage, it was a great weekend. I'm off to the next 3-day event
held by Lincs if I can get there.

SARAH
 

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