As some of you will know, I’m very very slowly attempting to write a history of classic trials, concentrating on the comparatively undocumented period between the end of WWII and the start of the ACTC Championship in 1984. This is a taster …
15th December 1951. RAC. 4th RAC Championship Trial.
For 1951, the RAC made more changes to the location and format of their Championship Trial. After three years in the Cotswolds, with most of the observed sections on typical Cotswold tracks, the 1951 Championship Trial was moved to Meifod, in Montgomeryshire on the Welsh borders. The event was based at the King’s Head Hotel; the course was divided into two loops, one of ten miles (and three observed sections) to the north of Meiford, and one of eight miles (and four observed sections) to the south, both loops to be covered twice, so 14 observed sections in total. As a further indication of the changing nature of trials, It was remarked that all of the observed sections were within a five mile radius of the start. Autocar noted that ‘… the RAC had been forced to follow the current trend and avoid roads and tracks as far as possible, using grassy slopes, timber sites, and rocky water courses for the observed sections’. Autocar also noted that Ken Wharton, having won the previous three Championship Trials, stood down for 1951 and was acting as a steward for the event. Wharton, obviously determined to fool his contemporaries, had named one section as The Hairpin. This was a muddy track at the end of which competitors had to jump-up a four-foot-high bank to a parallel track. Everyone attempted the jump as a hairpin, and everyone failed, but Wharton had put the section ends boards at the top of the bank so there was nothing to stop competitors charging the bank at an angle and continuing along the upper track without changing direction, but none did!
As usual, the Championship Trial was an invitation event, the qualifying criteria being a top twelve finish in at least three of the 17 qualifying events; 35 were invited and 32 started. Autocar reported that 31 of the starters were in cars powered by small four cylinder engines of under 1500cc: 23 with Ford Ten engines, four with Vauxhall Twelve engines, two with Jowett Javelin flat-fours, one with an Austin A40 engine, and one with an MG TD engine. Fifteen of the cars were supercharged. The top three finishers displayed different approaches to the ‘small-four’ concept. The trial was won by Wally Waring in his much-modified Dellow Special, with the 1172cc engine bored-out to its maximum of 1196cc and supercharged. The runner-up was Tony Rumfitt in an 1172cc Cotton, without supercharger, and third was Godfrey Imhof in his latest special made from mainly Ford parts, but with independent rear suspension and a supercharged 1250cc MG TD engine.
