The Pancake Nav-Ex - 23rd February 1996 - Match Report

By Martin Baker & Pete Goodman

At the official start time for this event, only four crews had assembled in the Kendleshire lay-by, and there was some discussion amongst the organisers as to whether their considerable efforts should be expended on such a turn-out. However, it was democratically decided by the competitors that they would run, this being further marginally justified by the late arrival of Messrs. Farrow and Spencer at 7.45. We would have hoped, though for at least the seven who turned up for the January event.

We had set out to make the navigation relatively simple, especially for the Beginners class who had simple grid references, a straight herringbone and some well-ordered and well-drawn tulip diagrams to sort out. The grid references for the Others were generated from the keyword Malmesbury (when was the last time the words BUM, BRA and BRM last appeared on a Nav-Ex?), and their circular herringbone, including a "spot" which was not the start was a little more devious. They also had to cope with a trace section which referred to Charmy Down runway and a district boundary.

The route was to take our intrepid band around Henfield, Pucklechurch, Wick (twice), Upton Cheyney, Landsdown and Woolley to a finish at the White Hart, Cold Ashton (good food but a long wait - in fact we were still troughing when the competitors arrived at 10 o'clock)

The Bird/Johnston crew, this time in Howard's Mini, seemed to be well on the pace with their plotting, reflected of course in their first place. They were the only crew to actually find the fire hydrant marker at Q28 in the Golden Valley, ( For the rest of you it was up the telegraph pole on your left as you turned sorry! ) and also the only crew to pot that you don't normally pass over a set of electricity transmission lines on a Nav-ex! (Supplementary route question 7). Two other crews - who shall be nameless - should have been disqualified for using a helicopter.

The other crews did very well against Paul and Howard's almost perfect route check scores. Bill and Spence obviously suffered from the handicap of arriving late, and less obviously from having a brush stuck under the Jetta's accelerator pedal, not noticed until leaving the pub after the event !

So to the official results -

February Nav-Ex Results

1st 1 Howard Johnston/Paul Bird Mini Cooper 305 Pts
2nd B2 Andy Rigler/Dick Craddy MGB 270 Pts
3rd 4 Andy Moss/Richard Reynolds Peugeot 309 255 Pts
4th B3 Mark Niblett/Jim Sawyer Rover 416 204 Pts
5th 5 Bill Farrow/Alan Spencer VW Jetta 110 Pts

Competition numbers preceeded with B = Beginner