TUNSHILL TRIAL AND TEAM RECOVERY

Once again the Drake family stepped in when we were up to our neck
in what is usually found at the bottom of Windy Hill or in piles on Ray
Thornber's land and let us use the land at Tunshill. A well trialled area
which the experts amongst the club know only too well.

Generally the event was nice, the weather treated us well, there was
time for a drink at dinner and it was still daylight when it ended. Everyone
arrived on time, (well mostly, one slightly late arrival was a committee mem-
ber, so We daren't say any more!) and the 'AAALLLL DRIVERSSS' call
went out bang on PLRC time (or 2 minutes late GMT). Could this be the
turning over of a new leaf? Sticking to published times? Out of an entry
of 38 it was bloody good.

There were thousands of volunteers for marshalls, thank you all, in-
cluding those of you who weren't used. Don't worry too much 'cause you
will be called on by your club at some time. One of the reasons for so many
marshalls was that we only had 7 sections running at the same time, but it
was found that at least two marshalls and in some cases three were required.
We tried to keep the sections nice and long, I know that some of you didn't
find that out and only did the first parts but they were, honest! We tried
to keep the sticks fairly wide as well, but as plenty of people found out
they weren't wide enough! To compensate for the wide sticks you got funny

angled starts and finishes on some of the sections and plenty of people fell
for these. Just think, a little gully not 4" deep stopping nearly half a dozen
ace triallers and a little downhill on another section making even champion
drivers chicken out!!! Shame on you Pennine!!! All said very tongue in
cheek ('cause I know that some of you take things to heart) but they were
all cleared by a standard baldish tyred 2 1/4 Lightweight when the ground
was fresh and nice and nobody had laid down a set of tyre tracks to polish
the ground and send you the wrong way.

Dinner time came after seven sections and the threat of starting without
you kept the local licencees profits down and motors were queueing up at
the start of the last three sections before the marshalls had got back.

After the sections came the team recovery, and once again a different
site for the spectators comedy hour had to be found. It was and true to
form the competitors made mincemeat of what should have been a difficult
area. All the planning went to waste however with all of the teams taking
the longer, safer way round. The island in the centre of the course was to
prevent people from driving up the first hill unassisted 'cause it would have
been so easy without it, but what happened - 'Come on Eddie!' - BANG -
I shouldn't have bothered. There it was - gone!!! So was Eddie's gearbox,
or so he thought, it wasn't really, just his overdrive and linkages re-arranging
themselves, but after they were re-shuffled it was back into the fray.

As all this was going on the reappearance of 'Iggins 'Eroes made itself
felt as they all ran round the field plucking sticks from the ground and by
the end there was nothing else to do but sort out who had won what and
what they should get ......... Nice to see a nice face winning the Novice

trophy as Sue Parker, sister of Steve, took the honours away from fierce
opposition ..... and don't worry Ted, all has been sorted out at this end.

On a final note, have you ever noticed at Tunshill water is like a mag-
net and some people will even leave the course just to play away to their
hearts content. The afternoon sections were a prize example of this and to-
gether with one of the morning's sections you could see many would be
ice-breakers or Robin Cousins floating about in their motors and quite a
few of these suffered the dreaded fate of soggy plug leads. Motors trying to
skate on their side or their roof didn't improve themselves either but there's
always someone with a yearning to be a brass monkey in an ice cube.

Dickymouse