A reasonably mild November morning welcomed me when I arrived at Halford for our CCVT, I made a point of being there earlier than everybody else because by the time I have stripped my motor down to battle dress everyone else is usually chomping at the bit.  As my motor was being dismantled trailer after trailer appeared including some guests from Leicester and Rutland ROC.

Once we had all signed on we split into small groups to peg out some sections.  Finding usable ground was tough going as the RTV boys had beaten us to a lot of the ground and we were unable to drive their sections without potentially ruining them so we were trying to work our way around them.  Eventually we had sufficient pegged to get started with.

Section one was a bit of a wake up call for us all, it involved a 180° turn and then a very steep loose decent between a few trees and trying to miss the river at the bottom.  Martin was first on and soon found that even his 80” was too long to make the turn, so after a quick shift of gates he was off again slipping and sliding down the bank sideward to score a reasonable six.  Dave managed to get him self wedged between a couple of trees and a river and Paul Jackson decided it would be fun to poke a hole through his windscreen with a branch that happened to be in the way of his chosen route.  I chickened out of this section (because we were running a bit behind) and took a nine, but Richard scored best on this section with a clear.

The next section was a mystery tour, but luckily my passenger had turned up and signed on.  I was first on the section and there were no tracks to follow so my full trust was with my navigating monkey and we scored a 1, the only other to get so far was Ron from LRROC.  Paul re-arranged his bumper and Martin’s hat popped off with excitement on this section and once it did the section went to pieces, now we know his secret powers rely on his hat!

We then moved down to the open bowl section for the next couple of sections with some of the early banks catching out a couple of the drivers, and slippery turn which was used on two sections gave everybody grief with nobody scoring better than a 2 on section 3 or 4, slow trickling or power-slides did not work, Andy even tried the old 2WD trick.

Section 5 was the killer 10 section, with only Richard and Dave managing 3, and again Don excelled with a 2 (its amazing what you can do with a 4.6 in an auto 80”).

Section 6 introduced us to the wet bit and my main memory of this was Glyn who was double driving my motor leaning at 45° into the mud hole, I directed Dave across some ruts to try to rescue Glyn and promptly got him stuck, and then Tim had to dodge two stranded motors to retrieve Glyn.  This was an excellent section and I thoroughly enjoyed it because I got the lowest score of one (all thanks to the yellow gloves).  It was at this point that my superstar navigator had a better offer and deserted me.

For section 7 we reversed the previous section so we were back in the wet stuff, the beginning of this section caught out some of the drivers, even Martin fell victim to a slippery 8 gate.  Glyn was first on this section and scored the best with a 1, I dramatically entered the water and then as equally dramatically exited the water backwards.

The sun was setting but we managed to squeeze in one more section in we travelled back down the far end of the sight to do one in the darkness of the wooded section.  A relatively easy start gave way to a deceptive turn which many didn’t judge right, but as is often the case when one finds the way, they all will follow.

Then it was just a case of sling the canvas on, pump tyres up and prize giving.  Excellent day, good weather, mud to play in and no damage (to mine).

I would like to dedicate my class win to Stevo…….if Carlsberg did navigators…etc, etc.

Just a quick note, there was only 1 clear during the day.  Well done Richard.