Vintage car fun dirt simple

Weather cancellations can through a frustrating spanner in the works of many event organisers and its participants.

But when the whole point of your motorsport endeavour is to test your vehicle through mud puddles and challenging terrain, there is no such thing as a rain delay.

Sunday’s Denis King Memorial Trial, held at Happy Valley near Cable Bay, was the final round in this year’s Mainland Sport Trial Championship, a four-part series for vintage cars held over winter.

Organised by branches of the Vintage Car Club of New Zealand, the series began in Reefton, moving to Balcairn in North Canterbury before the final two legs in Blenheim and Happy Valley.

Still plucking the dirt from his ears and his cars’ axles, Damon Rose of the Nelson VCC said the mud factor was as much a part of the action as the celebration of the vintage vehicles.

‘‘Reefton is a favourite - it always seems to rain there - just lovely,’’ he said.

‘‘The other day when we headed up to mark the course (at Happy Valley), we thought there is no way some of them will get around it, but they seemed to do pretty well.’’

Vintage car trials involve vehicles made before 1960. They follow the style of ‘trials’ events which were very popular in the UK in the 1950s, where drivers and their crews endeavour to get their cars as far as possible up steep and slippery farm tracks.

Rose said road cars were once commonly used in the trials but were now less frequent as the worth of preserving such vintage cars became acknowledged.

‘‘They’re too good to be smashing up - but the trials cars are purpose built made from bits and junk from old cars that aren’t much good for anything else,’’ he said

‘‘They’re pretty cheap to build and give a new lease of life to the older ones.’’

This year’s event saw a big increase in entries, with 34 people taking part behind the wheel of 20 cars up from 18 people in 2015.

Jared Dacombe’s Morris Special secured the most points (84) for the Nelson leg of the competition, but Lance Braid’s score of 78 in his Austin 7 was enough to give him the overall Mainland series title, riding in the short wheelbase class. The trials were named after Dennis King who was the founding chairman of the Nelson branch of the VCC.