We’d never entered the MMKMC Summer Slalom before, but Ian Mepham had it as part of his stag do in 2019 and he invited me to join them for the Sunday part (the event) of his stag weekend.
I’ve never been that confident (nor good!) at Autotests and this event was a multi venue Autotest on grass, tarmac and gravel. Matt had done work to try and make the handbrake on the MG better and it definitely was.
I felt I was doing ok on the gravel tests and endurance rallying was a benefit here. There’s no time or opportunity to walk the tests, so trying to remember them in a short period of time was also tricky. By the afternoon, it was time for our first tarmac test of the day – the bit I was dreading!
The handbrake was working well, and the only think we both really struggled with was the lack of lock on the MG which was noticeable in some of the tighter places. I’ve only got a video of one of my tarmac runs (and it was the slower one!) but it gives a nice indication of the day. I did unfortunately manage to slightly rearrange the rear of the MG after reversing into a bank; I’d done some great hairpin handbrake turns and was onto what would have been a very good time (considering the time with the reverse!) but didn’t quite pull it off, and reversed into a bank in the process… oops.
All that said, it was a great day and 5th in class and 10th overall was really pleasing. The class had 12 or so crews in it, and it was a far better result than I could have have expected; a top 10 is always nice as well.
Video of one of the tarmac tests is on Youtube.
Photos by M&H Photography.