What it is all about....

THE ANWCC OFF ROAD TRIALS CHAMPIONSHIP 2003 Sponsored by:

I thought that I had better write a few short words to explain what the ANWCC Off Road Trials Championship is all about.
We have been members of the Association of North West Car Clubs for a few years now and the Association has championships in most of the disciplines of Motorsport.
What is quite unusual with off road trials is that we have such a huge range of classes both in RTV and CCV, that it would be difficult directly comparing them against each other to decide a champion. How do you equate the skills needed to get a clear on a section in a CCV coil-sprung 80'' special, to getting a 6 in a RTV standard 109'' leaf sprung? Which is the greater achievement? After quite a lot of thought (beer assisted), the only way any comparison can be made is by performance in class. By using this sort of comparison an entrant would only be competing against their peers. Of course, it would be easy to enter in something like a 107'' series 1 and win your class every time, so it is necessary to ensure that there is true competition by ruling that there needs to be at least 3 entries in each class or there will be amalgamation into the nearest class for competition.
We decided to make it 5 out of 6 rounds to count as we all take holidays or family commitments can impinge on our best intentions. Of course you could still go to all 6 rounds as these will all count towards existing club awards, you would just drop the worst performance for the Championship purposes.
Scoring, you will notice that we are awarding not just points for position but also for starting and finishing each round. If you do not finish a round you cannot get the bonus points. Therefore you could get 8 points at each round for a maximum of 40- there being only five to count. Naturally it is possible for entrants in different classes to end up with a tie at the end of the season, so a decider section at the last round will be used if necessary. We had a lot of thoughts on vehicle classes and whether we should go for other than Land Rovers. With the time constraints we were under it was decided to base it on the ARC regs as these were relatively easy to reproduce and we understand them. Hopefully the idea will take off and in subsequent years we can encompass all makes.
The Championship is to a National B status so all entrants will need to have a minimum of a Clubman's licence from the MSA. This is because the Championship is open to any member of a ANWCC club. As long as they have a licence and a Land Rover, people from racing, rallying, sprints, hillclimbs and car trials will be eligible. L&C are the only 4x4 club in the ANWCC at the moment but the idea is that we try to get others to join. In the future other clubs could the host rounds of the Championship. So that is it really. Get yourself a licence, enter the championship and at the end of the year, YOU could be the very FIRST North West Off Road Trials Champion.

Colin Gaukroger

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