This year's Jacobean Sporting Trial on April 27 was an event full of surprises, the greatest being that it didn't rain! Against forecasted predictions of heavy overnight rain and showers during the day, the weather was dry and sunny throughout. Though this was certainly pleasant for the compeitors, and for the marshals, it made a nonsense of the course which had been laid out for a wet and muddy hill-side.

As a result, 0 was the most frequent score on the penalty sheets, and from a bumper entry list of 40 teams, there was not a single retirement - though one came close to it when the wiring to the fan shorted and smoke started pouring out from under the bonnet. There were 1200 completed runs of which 877 (or 73%) were clear, with drivers experiencing most of their few problems during the first of the three rounds when the fresh grass tricked some of them into a mistake. It says something for the closeness of the competition that at the end of the trial, the 12th placed team had still only dropped 9 points.

It was the tighest run thing anyone could remember in a long while, but in the end Glen McKeown, who had done an excellent job of organising such a full event, was able to accounce the following winners:

Jacobean Trophy: Steve Courts

Bouncers Trophy: Jim Knifton

Red Class (George Bance Trophy): Steve Courts

Blue Class (Club Trophy): Anthony Lane

Green Class (Gordon Holdrup Trophy): Mark Seward

Norman Overton: Monty Peters

Rob Davies: John Ridley

Sabre: David Rance

In fact three competitors finished with completely clean sheets - Steve Courts, John Fack and Duncan Stevens - so it was decided that the only fair way to distinguish them was by engine size, thus handing the Jacobean and the George Bance Trophies to Steve Courts.