Plum Pudding Historic Sporting Trial

There was another inter-Christmas and New Year event back on in 2021 as we attended the Plum Pudding Historic Sporting Trial, near Buriton, Hampshire. The entry had been reduced somewhat but a total of 42 crews tackled the 6 hills, being run 3 times. As usual there were two classes and Simon Kingsley took the historic section whilst Ian Wright took the historic class. Another good day out and it was great to get back to some end of year sporting normality.

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750MC – Mallory Park

Another Sunday and another visit to a circuit meeting. This time it was a true clubmans affair as it was the 750 Motor Clubs Mallory Park meeting. It has been a while but we were quickly remined that Mallory is a great circuit to watch at, especially with race fields of 20+ cars. In the case of the Hot Hatches they were close to 40 cars and the two races were action packed throughout the field. There were the two 750 fields, Historic and Modern, who also ran a pair of races. Last but not least were the Caterham Graduates, who ran a total of 3 incident packed races.

Plum Pudding Historic Sporting Trial

A record entry of 57 competitors was received for the 750 Motor Club’s Historic Plum Pudding Trial held on the 29th December 2019 at Head Down, near Buriton in Hampshire. 6 long slippery sections had been devised in the woods and as all the hills could be cleared the pressure was on not to make any mistakes. Stephen Barnes won the Historic class by four marks from an ever-improving Matt Johnston who was three marks ahead of Dave Methley. The Post Historic class produced a three-way tie between Steve Courts, Mark Howse and Dave Oliver all of whom did not lose a mark all day. A remarkable result which left the organisers having to reorder the trophies to reflect the tie.

Birkett 6hrs Relay

Another visit to Silverstone for the crazy race that is the Birkett 6hr Relay. With terrible weather blighting the race it finished early behind the safety car just shy of the 6hr mark. The scratch race was a clear win for the Breakell Racing Heroes, who took victory by over two laps from RJ Motorsport. The early finish did stop the close battle for the final podium place as Area Motorsport just edged out the Red Rascal’s. In the handicap race The Three Amigos 2.0 took victory from Team Darkside with Tegiwa Type-R Trophy taking the 3rd spot.

Plum Pudding Historic Sporting Trial

Our 3rd Plum Pudding Sporting Trial and a bumper entry tackled the 6 hills on offer. With the conditions under foot very good it was always going to be a low scoring trial and after 2 runs Andy Gowen (Ibex), Ian Wright (Cannon) and Steve Courts (Facksimile) had cleared every hill. On the 3rd run Courts scored 1 on hill 1 and it was enough to drop him to 3rd overall as Gowen and Wright cleared every hill on round 3 and could not be separated. They were declared joint winners. Mitch Wood took the historic category in 5th place overall, scoring just 5 penalty points.

Birkett 6hrs Relay

After missing the 2017 edition we were back for the 68th running of the Birkett 6hrs relay race. The day started out grey and once the rain started during the the 3rd hour of the race it only got worse. It did nothing to dampen the racing though and in the scratch race a late safety car period saw the gap between the top two teams dramatically reduced. Long time leaders Cupra Racing held on to win by half a second from the hard charging Breakell Racing Heroes, after the 6 hours of racing. In the handicap race it was the Red Rascal team who took victory by just over half a minute from the Mostly Rusty Two Seaters.

Plum Pudding Historic Sporting Trial

Thanks to the peculiarities of the calendar we found ourselves catching two Plum Pudding Sporting Trials this year. Steve Courts & Peter Hore (Facksimile) were unstoppable in the post historic class clearing every hill on the mornings two runs. Finally on the 3rd run one hill saw them score 2 points but it was an impressive performance to take victory. Andy Gowan & Beth Carroll (Ibex) finished just 1 point behind in 2nd overall with Ian Veale & Robert Bowyer (Cannon) a fine 3rd overall with a score of 5 points and first historic crew.

Gloster Sporting Trial

It was another close one down in Frocester as Roland Uglow took win number 3 in a row, this season. He had started round 3 trailing Ian Veale by a single point, with John Fack just a point further back, but thanks to five 0’s across the 8 hills he set a superb score of just 3 points to take victory from Veale by 8 points. Uglow really is in fine form and the BTRDA Gold Star Championship final in Penrith, next January, should be a really cracker. Paul Price matched Veale’s score of 12 on round 3 to secure 3rd overall by just two points from Richard Sharp who notched up a score of 9 points on the final round. Fack dropped back to sixth overall as he failed to make a low score on final round of hills.

Plum Pudding Historic Sporting Trial

It was a superb start to the year down in Hampshire as we took in our first Historic Sporting Trial. A few miles South of Petersfield was the venue for 6 tests amongst mature woodland, with a mixture of vehicles from the 1960’s up to 1974. In the Historic class Ian Wright & Steve Jones (Cannon) won by 14 points from David & Lesley-Ann Methley (Cannon), meanwhile the post Historic class, (and overall victory), went to Steve Courts & Dave Oliver (Facksimile) by just a single point from Mark & Paul Howse (Facksimile). All in all another excellent days motor sport.

Gloster Sporting Trial

John Fack became the ninth different winner of the year at the round of the Sporting trial season at the Gloster. Fack hadn’t won for two years since winning the British championship and ended the year with an overall win, which his identical twin Jerome started with. A heavy overnight frost made for extremely treacherous conditions and a high scoring day with Fack and Roland Uglow leading the way finishing just seven marks apart. Reigning BTRDA Gold Star champion Ian Veale completed the podium a further eleven behind.