6th August 2022

Sat here in the dark of late October now the 2022 season is all over, looking back to a summer’s day knowing it’s going to be many many months to the beginning of the 2023 season feels a bit sad. For me the days and weekends away trialling are something to look forward to, a break from the normal bed work routine that dominates adult life. Looking back over quite a few years now class 1, for post 1998 cars has always been well supported I had a great season in 2021 with many good results but 2022 had seen entries tail off sharply with sometimes only 2 or 3 of in the class which makes it very hard to win overall with the index scoring system, had some great battles throughout the year  but not the overall wins which come with bonus points in the MSUK championship and silver spoons in the BTRDA.

So seeing the final instructions for this event  my eyes lit up at a class of 6!!!! That’s enough for a decent index calculation!! All my christmas’s have come at once!!!

It was a lovely sunny day in a beautiful part of the world and once the normal pre-event formalities had been taken care of we headed off to the 8 laid out sections to see what day had in store for us.

I don’t know what happened if I am honest but I had a storming round 1, while everyone else seemed to struggle I climbed almost everything, dropping a mere 3. In class 1 the next closest competitor was on 9 and I was even 1 mark ahead of the lowest scoring class 3 car. The sections were changed ahead of round 2 but I was still climbing well and finding grip or lines nobody was finding……by lunch I was a long ahead of everyone in my class and only one of the big guns in the rwd class was a couple of points ahead of me…… If anyone knows the answer as to why I was going so well can they let me know!! Just seemed to be one of those occasions where everything clicks I guess.

Lunch break arrived , a good chance to catch up with everyone and swap tales of woe or success. I was doing great, a nice big gap in the class to the next competitor which was on form local, not even my normal class 1 sparring partner Trevor Moffat. I could almost taste the victory and it tasted good!!

The day had remained dry and altering the sections to stop cars, starts to get harder and harder, this normally leads to low scores where every mark counts. I was a fair bit ahead all I had to do was be careful and not do anything stupid.

All this has sounded a bit big headed so far…me romping to an easy win……but motorsport has a way of humbling people very quickly, and this is where everything started to unravel for me. All my earlier good work was quickly undone by me missing a 12 gate out….I can’t write here what went through my head or came out my mouth at this moment in time, away from people the air was as blue as my car!! From elation to crushing disappointment in a matter of seconds. I pretty much walk every section looking out for this type of change all the time but somehow this one escaped me. A loss of grip on a climb is one thing; missing a gate out has to be the worst way to lose marks and a 12 gate is the very worst.

I had to regain composure after that, the rest of the round was fine but that was a massive loss and my once large class lead had been severely trimmed. I was more than kicking myself , for the first time this year I had enough people in the class to make it count and that happened. Round 4 saw me and Trevor back to trading marks on different sections like we normally do , this round I lost another 4 to Trev. Was really glad there weren’t 6 rounds!!

I always said the best you can do is win your class in trials, after that, other factors come into play like how many people are in your class, how they did on the hills compared to you.You need  big gaps between the  scores to separate  you and the other competitors to get a good index and I had just handed away big chuncks of marks in the afternoon.

Thankfully my mornings efforts were enough to let me claim my one and only overall victory for the year. I was very happy to have a win for the year but I feel lucky, normally a mistake like the whopper I made would have been way too big to recover from.

A most enjoyable day trailing in Wales, a truly beautiful setting, you can see Snowdia from this venue.

Onwards to 2023 and a new class structure which sees the older class 1 cars merging  into existing class 2. Will be interesting  to see how I fair.

Rupert