64 th Lands End Trial Easter 1985
Every year from time immemorial – well not quite – but from at least 1908 weather, wars, petrol rationing and foot and mouth disease permiting the MCC one of Britains oldest established motoring clubs has run the Lands End Reliability Trial.
At one time the route was non–stop London to Lands End and back, imagine that on a belt drive tube ignition motor cycle with acetylene lights and unsurfaced roads. Now-a-days there are four different starting points, Lewdown, Bristol, Oxford and London and the finish is Newquay.  This year 372 intrepid competitors obtained an entry with at least another 50 not being so successful. The regs. cater for all types of motor cycles  and cars, entries ranging from a 1931 500 side valve Norton to the latest  in off road trial bikes in the 2 wheel classes to a 1926 single cylinder Trojan, (at least it did have pneumatic tyres) a brace of 1923 Frazer Nashes and a gluttony of modern day V.W. Beetles, Ford Escorts and Spridgets etc- in fact whatever the vehicle, you can guarantee that somebody will have tried it (yes Rolls Royce, Aston Martin, Porche etc.) although it would be interesting to see if a c5 appears on the scene!
This year the Lands End Trial had a road milage of 370 miles with the sections incorporated along the route, the sections included some notables like ‘Beggars Roost’ at Lynton and ‘Blue Hills at Perrinporth. Starting time for Jenny and myself in the Midget and Dean and Crispin in the Beetle was 11.05 – 11.06pm at Gordano Services on Friday night. A journey of 92 miles took us to Tintinhull the time control where competitors from their different start points meet to start properly. The first sections were tackled in the dark ‘Summerleaze’ caused some hold up but from there on the event ran smoothly although the twelve competitors who broke their diffs. on ‘Beggars Roost’, which was in fine form, would possible not agree.

All the hills were challenging and some fine scenery was witnessed in particular along the cliffs at ‘Widemouth Bay’ to ‘Crackington’ another MCC Classic which with the help from the locals who had ‘doctored’ the top part of the hill was drawing its usual high number of failures. The hill of the trial had been saved until last in fact the last 10 feet of ‘Blue Hills 2’ saw more lost 1st class awards than the rest of the sections put together. On viewing Blue Hills from the approach road it is very easy to become intimidated by its severity and steepness and after seeing all but 2 of the 30 competitors in front of us fail we were none too confident when our turn came, but the midget did not let us down and with Jenny bouncing like mad we fairly leapt up over the ruts and ridges and managed to keep enough way on to get over the newly introduced terror at the top of the section to claim a 1st award. For the record Jenny and myself managed to win class4 (sports cars – 42 in class) no one else in the class managed to clean Blue Hills. Dean claimed a finishers certificate – Dean had a much more difficult trial as running class 5 (rear engine over 1300cc) he had difficult restarts to carry out on a lot of the Hills. In all we covered a total of 580 miles from leaving at 7.30pm on Friday evening to arriving back at 11.30 pm on Saturday night. Next MCC event is the Edinburgh in October.
Arthur Vowden