2012 Three Castles Welsh Classic Trial -Tony King

A group of nine members from Wallasey Motor Club were marshalling on a test at Gyrn Castle in North Wales on the last
day of this year’s tenth anniversary Three Castles Classic Trial.
Having been nominated as test commander, I was a little nervous before the event that not enough marshals would
arrive but with Neil Evans’ chasing and a start crew organised by Dave Thomas, there were enough bodies on the day.
Initially, I think, people were a little disappointed with how short & comparatively simple the test appeared to
be.However, despite the early start, it turned into an interesting morning’s motorsport with a variety of classic cars and varying levels of commitment from the crews.
Surprisingly, the rain we were all expecting held off and we managed to stay dry which was a bonus .After some instruction on the Liege clocks from the clock car, Gary, Neil & Jon took up position at the stop line.
The cars ranged from 30’s sports & tourers to early 80’s saloons & sports cars. There was a wide variety of makes including Alvis, Austin-Healey, Bristol, Jaguar, Maserait, Mercedes, Morgan, and Porsche.
Steve & CJ were monitoring the “garage” (C) manoeuvre which several competitors managed to miss completely! The rest of us were split between the slalom (B) and a stop line (A), noting any crew who failed to negotiate the manoeuvres successfully.
Whilst not as dramatic or technically sophisticated as rallying, the variety of cars and driving techniques on this trial made it interesting. And we finished in time for a lunchtime pint…..