The Summer Autotest Series just gets more and more popular, with 31 participants at the last round. The size of the venue at Farningham just about copes with the numbers and we are seeing many new faces this year, especially from our friends at the Chelmsford Motorclub.

Clive Cooke is doing a wonderful job crunching the not inconsiderable numbers and sending out results and reports promptly. This is Clive’s third year of organising the series and he has expressed a desire to step down at the end of this season and actively compete in the championship in 2006. So….yes you know what’s coming, but please bear with me, dear reader………….we are looking for a volunteer to take over the mantle of this successful series and carry on the good work.

If you feel you would be just the person for the job, contact Clive or another committee member and we can then arrange for you to shadow Clive for a couple of rounds so you can get the feel for the events and learn the ropes.

This championship is important and judging by the numbers of younger drivers coming out to play, it is often the first practical experience of motorsport these young people have, which means a lot to us as a club.

So come on, be proactive and put something back into your club, pick up the phone, or drop Clive an email. He’ll be glad to talk you through the organisational side of things. He is a very nice man!

Still keeping on the off-road theme, Croydon DMC organised a PCT in the middle of May. I am not sure if any 7oaks members went along to give their support to the event, but if you did, perhaps you could drop me a line or two about how it went. At the committee meeting at the beginning of the month, we agreed that 7oaks would put on another PCT either in the Autumn or early Spring. Keep watching Acorn for a confirmed date for this.

I had also heard rumours that a couple of our members had ventured down to one or two of Maidstone’s autotests at Headcorn. So with the same idea in mind, drop me a paragraph, so I can share your experiences within these pages.

Onto Rallying now, and our Rally Sec, Iain Gibson is happy to report that the Club’s Rally Championship this year is healthy, with 12 drivers and 9 co-drivers currently registered. At the recent stage rally at Longcross, run by Craven MC, we had 5½ 7oaks crews out on the event! Fortunes varied for them throughout the day and you can read all about it this month in Dick Athow’s write up on the event.

On the speed side, the 7Oaks Speed League events so far have been well supported by those registered for this year’s championship. Snetterton had 15 7oaks members entered, with Debden sporting 20 entries from our club. The hillclimb event at Harewood sees 5 members making the journey into deepest darkest Yorkshire. The “Welsh Weekend” events coming up in July usually see several intrepid speed leaguers making the trip across the border, as well. There should be another Speed League update in July’s issue including the latest Top 20 table, and thanks go to Ian Crocker for keeping us updated.

Finally Social matters and the May social saw 7 members turning out to go bowling in Maidstone. All had a good time and agreed it was an excellent value for money evening. We will be doing this again next year.

Due to my lateness with this issue (apologies once more) the June Noggin & Natter will probably have happened, but you get two bites at the social cherry this month, with a darts evening on Tuesday 21st June, with our friends at Bexley LCC. This should hit your mats before then so we hope as many of you as can make it, will support our club and we thank Bexley for their kind invitation.

Enough ramblings now. See you next month.