HCCS 2018 – hard work but a great success

I haven’t had time to post anything on here for some time… it’s all down to the classic car show we organise in our home town of Haslemere. For several months I have been involved in planning, booking entrants, sorting stalls, mapping the tour, getting advertising and sponsors, producing the programme and other advertising material so there has been little spare time for anything else. Even poor Mario has been abandoned but he didn’t sulk about it and came out on the day to help transport lots of essential stuff to the site and of course to be on display and meet his fans.

The build up started a couple of days before with collating all the material and putting together packs for the tour entrants. The day before we spent several hours, measuring and marking out the Green, we are very short of space so needed to position everything carefully on the day. Mario was loaded up with a little help from our cat Birkin and with a very special passenger but more on that later.

If you had seen the weather forecast for Sunday 27 May you would have thought that any event would have to be cancelled… I was practically in tears thinking all the hard work we had put in would go to waste but the people of Haslemere must all have been good, as despite the terrible predicted storms, the sun shone down on Lion Green and our 10th Classic Car show took place under glorious blue skies without a drop of rain.

The day started for 90 of our entrants with breakfast before they set off on a tour of around 60 miles, heading South of the town to Midhurst and then through Selham, Graffham and Fittleworth for a stop at the Stag Inn, Balls Cross where new landlords Jane & Mark Squire made them very welcome with coffee and biscuits before they continued via Wisborough Green, Alford and Shillinglee back to Lion Green. The route is devised by  James who puts his rallying experience to good use.

Back in Haslemere, we had been busy setting up over 50 quality stalls selling craft work, local produce, art and a great selection of food and drink, cream teas and entertainment from George’s Coastline Jazz Band. The tour cars arrived back and were joined by the show cars to fill the green, parked brilliantly by the local 1268 (Haslemere) Squadron ATC. We did lose some of the 230 pre-booked cars, as lots of them travel a long distance to attend and the weather elsewhere wasn’t as kind, so we weren’t as full as planned but the Green still had around 200 beautiful pre-1978 classics.

The cars made a wonderful display covering nearly 100 years of motoring, with entrants of all eras, styles and sizes from the smallest microcar to huge American cruisers. Many had been in families for years while others were new acquisitions but all were their owner’s pride and joy. Simon Dodd took this great Drone picture showing the Green filling up.

Crews are encouraged to dress in period to match their vehicles and Adrian Hardwick of Keats Estate and Letting Agents, the shows supporters, judged the entrants and choose the worthy winners. After some discussion the ‘style’ award  went to Dr David Nancekievill from Haslemere with his immaculate prize winning Daimler V8 250, beautifully attired wife Janet and some amazing period accessories.

Runners up were Alec Fry from Midhurst in an Austin A30 and Ivor Tanner from Ifold in a Riley 1.5.

We also have a ‘People’s Choice’ competition where show visitors vote for the car they would most like to take home. The overwhelming winner was Dave Melton from Haslemere in his newly restored Daimler Dart SP250 MK1, the Dart has gone from a total wreck to show standard in under a year and Dave has had the show as a target throughout the restoration. Runners up were Stewart Copps from Portsmouth in an MG PA which has undergone a family restoration over 50 years and Gary Bartlett from Winchester in his Immaculate Ford Capri MK1 1600GT.

Finally another reason why I have been so busy was our contribution to the Haslemere Hares – a community arts project which raises lots of money for local charity. The car show had sponsored a hare (in 2017 we had a Haslemere Hog) and this year I pained him. The theme was ‘the wind in your HARE’ a celebration of open top classic motoring. James started by modifying the ears so they looked like they were going back in the wind, then I hand painted his jacket, a decoupage local map bottom and ears, then original HCCS designed fabric scarf and a cloth cap. I was very pleased with the result. He will now be on display in Haslemere for the summer and then sold/auctioned.

So after all the panics and hours of work it was all over in a jiffy. Everybody seemed to have a good time and it is nice to give something back to our town and community. We never did get the threatened storms but you could see them on the horizon when we got home.

So that’s HCCS over for another year, once I’ve finished sorting all the photo’s updating the website and so on I will get back to updating the blog more regularly, we’ve still got adventures to tell about Members Meeting and the snow plus lots of exciting stuff coming up…

Thanks to Steve Flynn, Liz McDonald, Adam Simmonds, James Lynch for additional photos. All images are ©HCCS and can only be used with permission.

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Historic Rallying, go, go, go…

Mario and his female human are quite happy just bobbling along the country roads but this isn’t quite enough for the male human of the family… James likes to indulge in a little more adventurous pursuit – historic rallying.

The sort of historic or classic rallying he does isn’t the pace note, balls out, off road type, even he considers that a little mad (although he did once compete in and got a class win on the classic RAC stage rally) but endurance events for classic cars that require skill and judgement to navigate a complicated route keeping to very specific speeds on regularity sections to arrive exactly or as near as on time at checkpoints. He mainly takes this a stage further and prefers to do the winter events which involve inclement weather and long and difficult night sections.

The reason for writing this post now is that James is currently in Norway having started the Winter Trial today – six days of tough navigation and driving on snow and ice in Norway. He is navigating for Dutchman Herman Maas in a Volvo Amazon 122s. You can follow their progress on his own blog dickingaroundwitholdcars

James first started Historic rallying as a driver back at the beginning of the 90’s, his first event sharing the driving on the 1991 Monte Carlo Challenge in an A35 with Terry Langridge which started from Edinburgh, it snowed so much in this country that they didn’t think they’d even get to Dover. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find any pictures of this car or their subsequent vehicle in 1993 – a Triumph 2000, maybe I will be able to add them later.

By now James had the ‘bug’ and progressed to a 1958 Hillman Minx series 3 with friend Dominic West. Again the event of choice was the Monte Carlo Challenge which had various starts over the years but always finished on the harbour in Monte Carlo after several tortuous days crossing the snowy alpine passes, the ability to fit snow chains quickly in difficult conditions and not getting stuck being a big part of a successful run. 
The Mini was followed by a Mini 850 MK1.James and Dom then decided to get ‘tough’ and built a Riley special. This was a major project with a pre-war car and was quite a different challenge being exposed to the elements. The build of the car encountered a few problems and they were still finishing it off the day before the Monte start at nearby Brooklands. As Dom was working I went with James to scrutineering, the car hadn’t been driven with a passenger and as we drove up the A3 towards Brooklands sparks started coming out of the floor between my legs! The drive shaft was catching on the floor with the weight of a passenger and so the boys had to modify the car that night before departure, of course they had to break off to have a goodbye pint with our mates.

The car was good but the lack of time for preparation was their downfall and they suffered several problems culminating in a wheel falling off. This finished their rally and as they were stuck in a very rural part of France with poor communications they were lucky to be taken in by some friendly locals who put them up for a couple of days – apparently it was like the episode of Ello Ello when two ‘airmen’ appeared in the kitchen. We are still in touch with these kind people to this day. By the end of the 90’s James had a new partnership with Keith Webster and they competed in several Monte Carlo Challenges firstly in a grey Westminster and then in the Wolsey ‘4001BB’ which was fitted up to look like a period Police Car and they competed in full period Police uniforms.This was nearly to get them into trouble, when the local Police in Aix le Bains thought they were real policemen and invited them for a tour of the local police station, including the cells! James and Keith had great success in 4001BB and in 2003 were holding a top ten place until they made the fatal error of ‘overtaking the snowplough’, a little further down the slippery road the car slid into a rather substantial gate post – something they have never been allowed to forget!

Booking Sir Sirling Moss in Monte Carlo

Dom navigated the 2003 Monte for another friend of ours Peter Rowley in his Mark 2 Jag.
So for 2004 the duo swopped to Keiths TR.

Several years before this in the Summer of 1999, James had his first go at navigating a full rally – the Summer Classic Marathon to Biarritz for George Melvile in his Alvis. He was rather surprised that he enjoyed the challenge of ‘the maps’ more than driving and it was to be the start of several successful partnerships, he is now lucky enough as part of his job to be asked to navigate on various events and now rarely drives. He is in the very rare position of having class wins as both driver and navigator on the Monte Carlo Challenge.

Over the years James has navigated on many varied events – Classic Marathon, The Winter Challenge, The Classic Malts, The Emerald Isle, The Meachem, The Flying Scotsman and with Herman on many Winter Trials, all over the Uk and both West and Eastern Europe.

One of the more demanding events is Le Jog a four day event in December from Lands End to John O’Groats with very little sleep and often very inclement British Weather. Many of these have been navigating for Roy Williams in the Bigley Special, a Riley 12/4. One year they managed to roll the car, were back on the road in under half an hour and still won the class. He has been involved in several rolls and incidents over the years, luckily with only damaged pride and most often with the car being able to carry on with the event.  This post is getting rather long now and I’ve realised how many ‘holidays’ (he calls it networking’) James has been on over the years! I hope he has a good, safe and successful week in Norway, do look at his blog to see how they are getting on. Hopefully they will do well, the only downside is the rather lovely trophies he gets to bring home!

 

 

 

 

 

Have a ‘rally’ good time…

Mario’s human (and chief medic!) James has set off to take part in the 2014 Winter Challenge which starts on Sunday from Troyes, South East of Paris and meanders it’s way through the mountainous areas of France to finish in Monte Carlo next Thursday having hopefully completed some of the most famous Cols in rallying history.

James is navigating for Dutchman Herman Mass in a 1967 Volvo 122S. They have been a successful team for a number of years taking part in various Winter Events. Previous years have seen them on the Winter Trial which takes place in January with routes all over Europe from Eastern Holland, through Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Austria and Italy, meaning they’ve often found themselves in very snowy and icy conditions. 

It’s not looking like they are going to get such harsh winter conditions on this years Winter Challenge route through France and so James’ position as navigator will be much more important, one wrong slot could make all the difference on the road. James has spent the last couple of weeks busily plotting the route onto his maps, it looks like there will be some rather tricky navigational sections, hopefully they will do well – always a bit of a dilemma, I want them to succeed but you should see some of the trophies they bring home!

You can follow their progress on the official site or James will be writing his own blog – ‘Dickingaroundwitholdcars‘ – where possible.

James started off taking part in classic rallies more than 25 years ago initially as a driver, in an Austin A35, Mini, Hillman Minx and a pre-war Riley. Lots of fun and lots of adventures were to be had including breaking down in the Riley and being looked after by a family in a very remote part of France, apparently it was like a scene from ‘Ello, Ello’ when the poor husband came home to find two english ‘airmen’ in flying hats and goggles sitting in his kitchen!

He progressed on to an Austin Westminster Police car with navigator Keith Webster in full period police uniform, which became very well known on the classic circuit or you could say notorious – especially for being given a tour of Aix le Bain police station by the local Chief of Police who thought they were real policeman, amazingly they didn’t get arrested although they had rather naughtily had their picture taken in the cells! Unfortunately after a number of years the well performing Westminster met a rather sticky end, embedded in a gatepost in very icy conditions, luckily James and Keith were both unhurt, other than their pride, although James will never be able to forget the words of advise – ‘Don’t overtake the snow plough!’

After success driving in the early days, once James started his restoration business he started being asked by clients to navigate for them and so he began a second ‘career’ on the maps, which he now prefers to driving. As his interest in vintage cars grew, he started navigating in pre-war open top beasts, generally during the winter, the more inclement the weather the better. Several Le Jogs were undertaken in various pre-war cars plus several more visits to the North on the Flying Scotsman.

Now Mario has no intention of becoming a rally car in winter or summer but we have taken his ‘little brother’ Nippy the Subaru 360 on two microcar rallies across Europe. With James driving and Jane as a rather novice navigator we all had a big adventure but that’ll have to wait for the next blog…