Following a stint as one of Kev and Stuart (super clean motor) Baldwin's
crew on the '99 Hillrally and having thoroughly enjoyed the experience,
fellow crew member and work colleague , Dave Cookson (408) asked if I
would like to navigate for him in the 2000 ANCC Cornp-Safari
Championship-unwittingly J agreed.

The first round was at Tong near Bradford. "Preparation of the motor is of
paramount importance" said Dave, '"and all good navigators muck in" what a
mug I thought'. Consequently our Comp motor wasn't finished until 03.30am
on the morning of the event.

Dave hadn't forgotten that I was a virgin to the racing scene. In the weeks
leading up to the event, he'd progressively wound me up. On the day this had
an adverse effect upon my bowels, so much so, Dave said I should've been
sponsored by Andrex. However the Andrex puppy would've added weight to
our motor, plus there'd be no room for it to fit in being the racing snakes that
we are... NOT

As we queued up for our first run, the old nerves began to mount. An

argument ensued between Dave and myself. In the normally calm surrounds

of the comp motor cabin, 1 pleaded to visit the pooper for one last blast. Dave

reminded me that we were approaching the start line-like 1 really needed to be

told!

At the start line we went through our directional abbreviations i.e. left and

right. The last thing Dave said to me was, "remember to hang on to your

harness in case we roll-over"

Hang on a minute, roll-over... nobody mentioned rolling over !!

The lights fumed to green and we were off and into the first comer and then
off into the next. It was at this point I realised 1 had a very stupid grin on my
face. This was soon wiped off as we very nearly overshot the exit out of the
next comer. I suddenly started to notice the drops offs on the corners and the
steep edges, but there was no time to get nervous as I continued to shout our
complex directional abbreviations. Not that it mattered, by now the
windscreen was covered in mud and I couldn't see anything anyway.

I'm told I made a number of comments to the tune of "Oh S**t that's steep"
and "could you make an effort to miss the bumps please"
When we'd finished the first run I'd begun to realise what good fun this caper
really was. Unfortunately the Andrex puppy had caught up with me and it was
time for my umpteenth visit of the day to the pooper.

Having completed all of the required runs and with me covered in the mud
from most of them, I returned home to a hero's welcome, I was greeted by
my loving Wife who exclaimed "what the hell have you been doing ?"
"Well, what can I say...!!!"

Johnny ('pooper') Parkes
(Veteran comping expert...NOT !)

1991 was the last time I'd competed in a National or International if you prefer. That time it was held down near Plymouth on a beautiful sunny bank holiday. We made the long journey home proudly clutching the first overall trophy for the Comp Safari and nursing a spot of sunburn. Nine years later as we pulled onto the Ml heading South, heading for Bordon in Hampshire, the heavy & overcast, grey sky suggested we probably wouldn't be needing the sun tan lotion this weekend.

After a traffic free steady run down as far as Toddington services at the bottom end of the Ml we hit the back end of a 45 mile queue which stopped and started its way round the M25 as far as we needed to go. "Welcome to the Beautiful South"

We arrived at the site just short of 7 hours after leaving Hebden Bridge, and it was raining .a lot.

As we entered the site, we drove onto a massive hard standing where we spotted scrutineering taking place. As there was an absence of the usual mile long queue for 'scruting' we decided to unload there and then, get scrutineering over and done with and set up camp later.

We passed through with no problem although stories of the usual over zealous "'National' standards of scrutineering were heard throughout the weekend.

I understand a pair of Scouser's, complete with facial hair but sadly lacking in the

shell suit department had one or two problems getting through scrutineering As the

atmosphere started to get a little heated and was in serious danger of becoming

physical, Scouser 1 was heard to say to Scouser 2 the classic line "eye, eye, calm

down, calm down!!"

We parked the racer on the Land Rover World stand and then went to nosy round the very noticeably, quiet trade stands. The events sites being some distance from the camping area may have accounted for the ghost town trade area. With the rain still coming down we sacked the stands and sought refuge in a more sensible place, the beer tent. On the way we passed the central main arena where Diana Andrews was doing her best to interview a group of ex-military enthusiasts about their respective vehicles. Unfortunately the rain meant the attentive 'crowd' hanging onto their every word was restricted to a solitary man and his very wet dog, and even that looked fed up.

We made use of a window of fine weather and went to pitch our tent. By now many of the days CCV triallers were returning and the site was beginning to fill up.
Everywhere you looked were brightly coloured waterproofs and umbrella's.
The soundtrack was that of rustling nylon waterproofs in time with the squelch of
peoples boots in the mud. The whole site seemed to have that strange subdued and
sombre atmosphere that's brought on by miserable weather. People just going about their business in the knowledge that they've got to live with these conditions for the next two days. The state of the ground meant diff lock and low range were needed to get onto our camping field. After successfully escaping the foot deep muddy ruts we put the tent up and got out the barbecue. Naturally, by now it had started to rain again, but being British, we carried on regardless, put on our waterproofs and wellies and satout in the rain under a big brolly and tried to convince ourselves we were enjoying ourselves. It was about this time that Tracy discovered that her wellies leaked...
After we'd eaten I went in search of some water, after a mile long trudge through the brown slurry I eventually came across a tap. Judging by the spittle like trickle exiting from the tap, this was the same water supply feeding the whole of the South of England and we were at the very end of the pipe. 1 got talking to a guy while waiting for my meagre ration of water. He told me the mud in the entrance to his camping field was up to the bottom of the fuel tank on his Defender! He was more than a little concerned about how he was going to get his caravan out!

Saturday evening, and with a long days trialling ahead of us tomorrow, we prepared
ourselves by sampling some of the beer tents fine ales. A few hours later and with the bar having run out of 'Old Speckled Hen' we made a somewhat zig-zaggy retreat back to the relative comfort of our canvas chalet, being careful as we left, not to get in the way of the obligatory beet tent, 'pole climbers'.
Oh and it was still raining, but by now, even harder.

Saturday morning we're all up bright eyed and bushy tailed raring to go. We get up nice and early and have a leisurely breakfast before going off to the assembly point for the R.TV. Well that was the plan, in truth my alarm goes off, so turn it off, roll over and have 'just 5 minutes' and then of course you have another '5 minutes'. Get up, cook breakfast, share out the paracetamol, stuff some food for the day into a bag and climb into the back of John Carroll's double entered Series 1 still clutching a half eaten bacon butty . We arrive at the assembly point at the back of the field ,sign on and ...relax.

Then along comes a scrutineer acting out a very convincing role as Mr Jobsworth ,
yet strangely obnoxious at the same time He asks us,

"where's your sticker ?"

"what sticker ? "

"the sticker to say you've passed scrutineering, you should have got it when you

signed on"

"well we definfilyt signed on and nobody gave us any sticker "

"I'm sorry but if you haven't got a sticker then you won't be allowed to play"

"but you sctutineered this motor yourself and passed if, so does it really matter? "

"yes it does, you must get a sticker, every other vehicle around you is displaying a

sticker"

A cursory glance around us showed this statement to be clearly untrue.

"go get your sticker, and I'll be back to inspect it..."

John went to get the all important sticker, came back with it, screwed it up, shoved it in his pocket and of course our man never came back to 'inspect' us. Too busy with equally pressing matters of life and death... probably.

With John and his girlfriend, Alison doing the driving, me and Tracy were navigating for our respective pilots. With us all aboard we joined the long convoy of RTV motors that headed out of the main site for one of the two competition sites a short distance away.

The land used is used by the REME for vehicle training, in particular heavy vehicle
recovery This meant the targe site was littered with the rusting remains of tank's,
trucks, and various unidentified military hardware. All of them lying prostrate in
water filled ditches or deep craters There were even a few old lightweights lying
around.

John was still flushed with the success of his efforts in the previous days CCV trial.
Despite having to contend with LRW magazine's S2 trialier's non existent steering
lock, John and mate Wayne came away with a very creditable 5^th & 6^th in class.
However inspect the results a little harder and you find thai overall they came 155^th & 156^th'. This gives you an idea of, to what degree the V8 80" coiler is king when it comes to trials and how the once common trials spec S2/3 Land Rover can no longer compete on the same level as these hybrid specials.
Counting down the list of entries you find very few of what you would call standard S2/3 motors entered. There's a kind of irony in the fact that the ARC so keenly enforce their ail Rover policy on silhouettes, parts, dimensions etc. Yet by far and away the largest class of trialler is a model contrived by ARC club members as a way of legally bending the rules and has never even been in production.

John and Alison were both doing well and John was certainly more at home in his

very capable Series 1 88". Of course the downside to any National Trial are the large entries, this means big groups, couple this with long sections and it means lots of waiting around and then more waiting and-.. .ZZzzzz
On completing our first section we hung around for what seemed like an age before
we were allowed to move on to the next section. This pace continued throughout the
day until late afternoon, a little over 7 seven hours on the go, our group had
completed just 5 sections, and we still had 6 to go. Enthusiasm and interest levels in our motor were fading fast.

The final straw for us was when we'd completed ail the sections on one of the trials sites. We were then held on one side of the road while all the groups on the two sites were assembled and all ready to swap over en-masse. Well we waited, and waited, 1 hour to be exact. Then at last, we got the ofT where we were led in convoy over the road to the other site where we were all parked up once again. After 45 minutes, a quick poll in our motor, decreed everyone to be thoroughly fed up and definitely no longer enjoying ourselves. We decided the next two canes we should negotiate would be the ones holding up the entrance to the beer tent. We handed in our card and bid the rest of our group farewell. Little did they know they were in for a 8.30/9.00pm finish.

I know it's easy to criticise the organisers but this is supposed to be one of the
"premier' events of the year. people travel a Song way to ENJOY themselves, not to attend some kind of trialling test of patience and mental stamina.
The only plus point was that it hadn't rained ail day... yet!

We 'cleared' the entrance to the beer tent and after a couple of beers in the beer tent, Tracy and I went off to sign on for the following days Comp Safari. That done we drove the short distance to the start of the Comp to walk the course.
As we walked round the 4.5 mile course set out by Steve Wells it was clear we were going to get wet, in fact we were going to get extremely wet. There were huge lakes of standing water everywhere and with the land largely made up from heavy wet sand it was going to be like racing on a beach. As we approached the finish line we said "we could (jo with this weather holding up, it's not going to stand much more water out there" right on cue the heavens opened. It carried for the rest of the evening where for a period of time the rain turned even turned to hail stones... in May for God's sake !!.

As we slid down into our sleeping bags the rain got harder and the wind got stronger, testing our tent to the limit.

Tomorrow was going to be fan. We couldn't wait...

The Comp was planned for 10 o'clock sharp start. Unfortunately some bright spark had forgotten all the competitors number stickers.
A little later than planned the first motors were waved off the line by Tony Mason. (He of "Top Gear' fame before it went all 'Max Power')
'Tony' waved us off on the first of our planned 8 runs, we headed out to get very wet and dirty, which we duly did.

Made a total arse of the first bend, well fired up, and going far too fast, we overshot the first corner and tangled with some vegetation. We get round the bend, flooring the accelerator on the exit causes us to drift wide nearly sliding down a steep bank into a deep gully on the exit. Better cairn down. Hit the first big water pool, the only way to do it was to slow right down and gently does it, off road text book bow wave and we pull out the other side on all eight cylinders.

Already there are drowned out and buried axle deep motors littering the course, this only serves as a reminder not to go too mad and blow it so early on. Another problem was one of missing arrows to tell you which way to go. On every run we would get lost at some point. This may have had more to do with the course being re-routed every time out.

We picked our way through the water and the door bottom deep mud and make it
back to the finish in one piece. However we're both absolutely soaked to the skin and our waterproofs feel like we've been roiling around in a sand pit. We're lucky to have a windscreen, we had to feel for those competitors in open motors.
We watch the times going up on the large board and despite our run not feeling
particularly fast we're chuffed to find we're in 6^th overall. Hell, even the sun was
shining!!

Tony Masons fee had obviously not stretched to two celebrity starts as he was absent from the start line as we left for our second run. As we hit the first bend , I go to give the brakes a quick dab. Now the phrase "pedal to the metal" is usually reserved exclusively for the right hand pedal i.e. the accelerator pedal. When the brake pedal goes bang as it makes contact with the footwell you know you're in for an interesting ride, and it came to pass, that it was, indeed very interesting .
We were doing so well, we managed to keep out of trouble, using the gearbox for
braking. Some of the ruts were so deep on the comers that it would steer itself
'Scalextric style. Unfortunately, just like those little electric racing cars, try and throw one into a hair pin bend too fast and you're- going to come a cropper.
With my size 12 planted uselessly onto the non functioning brake pedal as more of a token gesture we overshot a comer resulting in the inevitable tree-wing confrontation.

The tree won, and we flapped our way round to the finish.

We'd dropped a few places but there was a long way to go yet. With dead motors all over the course this was going to be a survival of the fittest fight to the finish. All we had to do was keep going through the water and pick our way through the ever deepening ruts and mud. The stuck motors acted as warning beacons telling us which way NOT to go. To be honest it was more of a lottery if you managed to make it all the way round without getting stuck. We were living dangerously but were getting through...just.

Back in the pits a nosy round the braking system revealed all to be in order, and even some fee! had returned to the pedal

After a long wait due seemingly because every man and his dog were getting re-runs, off we go for our 3^rd run.

First bend and S*"'t, no brakes again, oh well, steady away, all we have to do is just take it nice and easy to the finish.

SMACK!! we glide ever so gracefully into a tree, rendering the temporary repair only minutes earlier I'd stood and admired, useless.

A bit further round we get lost due to another coarse change, this has me driving round in a circle looking for clues as to which way to go.

We then got bellied out in some deep ruts which, requires plenty of time consuming  backwards and forwards, thrutching to free ourselves.(Thrutching; technical term for lots of noise, lots of swearing all at the same time as making very little forward progress)

Get lost again and then hit another tree. To cap it all we go barrelling into a large water splash far too fast, on account of having no brakes. Then as we approach the finish, we catch up to a marshal! out for a drive on the course. We sit behind him with Tracy's finger pressed firmly on the horn. (there's a cheap gag there but I shall resist)

When he eventually spots us, (my horn was obviously not quite big enough to catch his attention, boom, boom !) he pulls in and waves us through, as we pass he offers up his hand to say "sorry" Yeah, great, nice one pal!

Looking and sounding like the Beverley Hillbillies we limp across the finish line with one wing flapping, a mangled bumper and with the engine coughing and Farting on 4 cylinders.

After salvaging the quickly disappearing wing into something more recognisable-ish as a wing .. .again, my attention turned to taking out the plugs in an effort to cure the suspected water induced misfire.. As I hunt for the tools in the back of the 90, the PA system crackled out a message that the planned 8 runs had now been cut to 3.
With our 3 runs done, that was it for us, we packed up our stuff and headed off back to main site to load up.

The smart competitors waited right up until the end of the day before putting in their remaining runs. By then the course had been re-routed round all the bits that were causing all the problems and a lot of the dead motors had been retrieved. This made for exciting racing as the first 3 places were finally decided all on the drivers last runs, with all 3 drivers being separated by just 20 seconds.

We'd planned to stay over on the Monday night and head for home on the Tuesday.
But due to a miraculous absence of rain and even lengthy periods of sunshine all day, all of our camping gear was dry so we thought lets get it packed up, wait until after prize giving the bank holiday traffic on the M25 time to clear and head for home. (Of course it rained on Monday night)

As we applauded the winners we could only contemplate what might have been. We
said our farewells and made our way out of the gate for 'all points North'.
A clear night time run up the Ml and 4 1/2 hours later at half past one in the morning we arrived back in Hebden Bridge.

The National must undoubtedly be a nightmare event to stage but far too many silly little things ultimately spoilt ones enjoyment of this weekend. The mind numbing and seemingly unnecessary hanging around does little for ones enjoyment of any trial. The yellow flags waved at us throughout the comp for no apparent reason other than to give the marshalls arm a work out. Catching up to a Marshall when racing is inexcusable. The poor arrowing and replacing of arrows. The endless line of motors queuing for questionable re-runs holding up the comps progress. Glen McKeith's farcical non presentation of the 'Fastest Standard' trophy. "Here's your trophy. Oh, hang on. Can we have it back, you might not have won after all" For the record Glen was eventually awarded the trophy.

One thing we can't guarantee in this country is the weather. However somebody must have wondered whether this piece of land would stand up to a 100 plus comp motors given a serious spell of rain The host clubs time consuming and self congratulatory back slapping at the prize giving ceremony seemed rather at odds with what a lot of the competitors were thinking.

Make no mistake, a 500 mile round trip is a hell of a long way to go for three runs.

Kev

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