A lovely sunny day and lots of entries for this,
the Morgan Three wheeler Club Sprint
and Round 4 of the 2014 Challenge Series.
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Hamish Bibby.
First, a note from our Competition Secretary, Pete Clews:
- The girls in the office, Sue Clews, Sue Darbyshire and Diane Grant
- The circuit marshals, both professionals and volunteers
- Phil and Lesley Reaney for helping make the meeting friendly but efficient
- Laurie Weeks and Mike Guess for their scintillating commentary, (rumour has it that they are booked to replace David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan for the British Grand Prix at Silverstone!)
The Words:
A report from Pete Clews – Competition Secretary
What a day. What sunshine. What a crowd and what competition. It could only be the MTWC Sprint. The paddock started to fill on Saturday lunchtime and by 8 am on Sunday it was full with almost 60 entries of which nearly half were Morgan Three Wheelers. The rest of the grids were sidecar outfits and bikes, many of which were entered by MTWC members. The Hodgson/ Harfield encampment was rather like an old wagon train coral with motorhomes replacing covered wagons! Further down the paddock were the 5 Speeders attracting a lot of attention from the spectators. Three had driven to the meeting including John and Jacqui Scruton and Austin Smith with Julia Perry, all doing their first event, and at the end of the day they drove away again. There were some beautiful vintage bikes including 85 year old (I’m sure he won’t mind me telling you) Archie Beggs on a 1928 Sunbeam. Archie’s fame goes back to when I was a boy and I’m certainly not that anymore! At the end of the paddock were the Tuers and Bibbys with their 8/80’s poised like hunting cats. Sue and George Darbyshire were taking a holiday from competing but Sue was soon flying round the paddock office as fast as she laps Silverstone, while George with no car to look after found his way to the startline where he relieved Phil Bridge so that he could passenger Cathy Quinn.
The youngsters were there in force. Tony Pearson, himself a newcomer this year, brought his daughters, Verity as passenger and Bronte to dual drive; her first very successful event. Rob Pike had his daughter Georgie beside him and Chris Harfield gave his son David another go in the F-Super. David Paxton took his first ride in Charles Pilbeam’s F Super Sports. Sandra Hodgson pushed Danny into the passenger seat to complete her first Curborough. Obviously in the MTWC “Girls are doing it for themselves!” There were of course all the “stalwarts” who take part in rain or shine and these were joined by Ian Cheese who had his first competitive drive of Bob Towell’s Flat sided Aero while Dave Hodgson Forsook his F-Type to drive a new Buckland.
The US Army were in charge of the Assembly Area and Bob Cope had brought along his GMC 6 Wheeler to help enforce discipline. Many of us had a great time driving it around on Saturday evening so thanks Bob both for the drive and for marshaling the competitors on Sunday. There were numerous Marshals, mostly club members who volunteered. Jonathan and Richard Garside took the post on the hairpin while Brian Betts along with David Followell travelled from deepest Wiltshire to man the middle post and Jim Baker oversaw them all.
For the first time the PA system worked well for us, perhaps it didn’t dare not to work with the venerable duo of Laurie Weeks and Mike Guess commentating. They did a wonderful job, very entertaining and informative, although after listening to what they said about one competitor I’d like to know what they said about me as I messed up the hairpin.
The crowd grew and by lunchtime the circuit was full of spectators including our Chairman Michael Joseph and Mogspares man Grahame. The picnicking groups included Robin and Sue Rew and Bob and Audrey Haynes while leaning on the fence halfway along the Shenstone Straight was none other than John Blower looking well after his illness. I can’t mention everyone or this will become a club history but one member estimated that there were over 90 members who he knew.
The afternoon sun shone ever more intensely but fortunately the ice cream van turned up to cool a few hot brows as the competition recommenced. I’m not going to write much about individual competitors performances mainly because I wasn’t able to watch too many but the results speak for themselves. Hamish was in blistering form to take FTD. Mark Reeves in the Morgan Motors 5 Speeder broke the 40 second barrier and Tony Pearson went rabbit hunting beating the fox to the kill. The youngsters did well and Ian Hughes ably assisted by the enthusiastic Georgia Hornby won the Standard Class on his first event driving Steve Lister’s 1927 Aero Blackburne. Bronte Pearson had an exciting first run with plenty of opposite lock but improved her time by 4 seconds over the day while Sandra Hodgson improved by 6 seconds, more importantly they all enjoyed themselves.
The event brought out the true spirit of the MTWC with several non-club competitors emailing to express their thanks and to say what a wonderful club the MTWC must be. Thanks again to all who took part in whatever capacity.
The Course:
The Photos:
From Dennis Rushton in the gallery below and Lawrence Fowler via Flickr. Many thanks to both photographers.
To view the photo gallery, click on any of the photos to bring up a larger version. You can scroll forwards and backwards using the [,] and [.] keys. Press [ESC] or click on the image to Exit.
To see Lawrence’s collection, click here
The Results:
Class Winners are shown in RED
click on the image for a closer look
