Compost

The 12Car and Scatter season is upon us once more with our first Scatter having been held already on October 10th. Hopefully, a good number will have turned out for this event, time will tell. Our next Scatter will be on October 31st, starting at The Lion Hotel, Farningham, 177/546671. Plotting instructions will be handed out at 8pm, so arrive in time for that and Colin Billings is in charge of this event. Maps 177 and 188 will be required. Croydon’s first 12Car is due on October 19th, which hopefully gives you enough time to read this and think, yeah, I’ll have a go at that. Westerham Garage is the start venue once more, see you there. Following on is our first 12Car on November 9th with Chin in the Captains seat. I don’t know where he plans to start this one from, don’t assume that it will be Westerham Garage, ring him beforehand to find out or check your email in case he’s being super efficient.
The Production Car Trial (PCT) of Croydon Motor Club originally planned for the 14th October has now been moved two weeks back to the 28th October. Unfortunately, I didn’t know this until last months ACORN had been and gone, technical term for our Ed’s increasingly efficient production skills of meeting her deadlines! Bit worrying this, we’re not used to having someone that good around!!  (Thanks for that  £20 note on its way!! -ED)  Anyway, with a bit of luck, no-one will have made the trip on the 14th, any that did, apologies ….. but it ain’t my fault. You will now still have time before the 28th to pencil it in your diary. If you’re worried that it might be moved again between now and then, then phone John Lloyd on 01883 653288. The venue is still Cameron’s Field, just outside Dorking on the A25, map 187/181500. I still hope to get along to this one, at the moment some plans that I had made for the 28th look as though they’re about to go pear shaped. From the show of hands at the September social, which was an interesting evening, thanks Chris Judge, there will be plenty of 7Oaks members out anyway. A report from someone wouldn’t go amiss.
One week before the PCT, is our finale to the Speed year with our sprint at North Weald on the 21st. As I said last month, these late events can decide the championships, and I’ll put money on it that the competitive half of the Crocker brothers, plus maybe Mr ”I’m not coming second again!” Webber will have carefully calculated what’s required with all the possible different scenarios. Martin Ellis is looking strong again, two years on the trot doesn’t happen very often in our competitive Marketing Machine championship. Last time was in 1986 and 87 when a J. Chambers won consecutively, not a name I know, not in the yearbook either. Tina Moon is Secretary of the Meeting with hubby Neville, clerking. Chief Marshal for his first time (he doesn’t know he’s on for a three year term!!) is Graham Baker, your Social Secretary. Give him and Tina and the event your support by coming out to marshal if you’re not competing. Graham can be reached on 01732 843429 or grahambaker3@activemail.co.uk . He’s quite often out in the evening teaching pretty young girls to drive, tough job that, concentrate, concentrate, mmmmm!
The Rally of Kent, Kent Forestry Stages and A.N.Other whose title eludes me at the moment will have happened by the time you read this. I can only hope that there was a considerable increase in turnout of 7Oaks members marshalling on this event than we saw at the Spotted Dick & Custard. Poor is an understatement, 20 out of potentially 300 or so were at Longcross on the Sunday, with the same old faces in the main. Hopefully it was just a one off with it being last week of school summer hols and with loads of other delayed events happening literally weekly, but next year’s date will be around the same time, and unless better support is forthcoming, the organisers will  quite rightly say, ‘stuff it’. They’re not quite the words used but imagination is a wonderful thing.
I did my first Nat B road rally on the 8th/9th September, the Bullnose run by Oxford Motor Club around the lanes North West of Oxford. I got a message a week or so before the event from Graham Child asking if I might be interested in navigating for him as Kevin Ablitt was on holiday. Why not said I, I’d only done a couple of 12Cars sitting beside Chin but had enjoyed them and most importantly, hadn’t felt sick doing them. So we went along in his Mexico as novices in the National B event, starting as car 29 out of a full entry of 40. Chin was out with Andy Elcomb alongside as his regular cohort was at a wedding. Mick and Chris Rose were out in yet another Mini and Jason Mortlock and Bill Smith had also entered in the Clubmans event. Our night began well …… not, I think Graham must have wished he hadn’t asked me when at the first junction out of the start, a roundabout, I took us off down the wrong A road heading back towards London! Not a problem, realised the error and turned around arriving at the TC a minute or two early. The navigation was relatively straightforward, so I started plotting as we moved, calling the route as well, as any decent navigator will do. At TC5, I thought I was gonna hurl, window down, deep breaths, and no more plotting on the move. We’d go on to a convenient spot, plot and then go. Doing this allowed me to recover so that towards the end of the night, I was raring for more. We did OK after the wobbly start, lost 3 minutes at TC5, a minute each at TC11, 12, 15 and 22, lost the plot at a still very confusing regularity section and picked up a 10 minute penalty for supposedly missing a passage check between TC’s 26 and 27. In total, we finished with 0 fails and 21 minutes, 22 seconds, which by virtue of car 30, another ‘novice’ finishing 2nd overall, was good enough for 1st Novice and 13th overall. I was happy, I think Graham was, will I do it again? Quite possibly. Incidentally, we finished ahead of the ‘Expert’ crew of Chin and Andy, poor Andy’s abacus beads got mixed up when he opened an envelope for a TC, one ahead of where they wanted to go. Mick and Chris retired for reasons unknown to me and Jason and Bill had fun even though they were excluded from the results for going OTL. They continued doing the route just for the hell of it. Jay had a big grin on his face end, Bill looked a little more relieved than anything!

Don’t forget the Scatters, 12Cars and PCT’s

Mark Dawson

The Acorn : October Edition