Drivers were welcomed to Woolbridge Motor Club for the Golden Springs car trial - in a rain affected event.

Wet weather brought about the cancellation of the trial back in May and the re-running of the event at Woolminstone, near Crewkerne last weekend was also impacted by heavy rain.

Undeterred the Woolbridge Motor Club welcomed competitors from across the country to the final round of the club’s trials 2023-2024 championship.

The event was also a qualifier for the Motor Sports UK British Car Trials Championship, the British Trials and Rally Drivers Club Trials Championship -  as well as that of the Association of South Western Motor Clubs.

Overnight rain made the battle for overall supremacy an intense competition with the best four drivers covered by just five points after twenty-four tests.

The eventual victor, Trevor Moffat, came from Class A, which catered for un-ballasted front wheel drive machinery.

(Image: Geoff Pickett)

The Gloucester driver came good in the final round of eight sections, having trailed local drivers, Will Lawrence and Gary Morris, during the early stages of the event.

Lawrence, from Weymouth, made a strong start amassing a six-point lead at the conclusion of the first stanza, with Bridport based Vauxhall Corsa driver Morris, and the similarly mounted Moffat giving chase.

The second round of eight tests saw Morris drop a single penalty point to his adversaries whilst Lawrence accrued eleven penalties from one section of the final round.

This removed him from the contest for the class win which was  bywon Moffat by a margin of four points over Morris.

Following the application of the Index of Performance (IOP) which establishes an index for each class, with each competitor’s score then being expressed as a percentage, Moffat was proclaimed the overall victor.

The category for front wheel drive cars carrying ballast delivered another fine performance as Martinstown Renault Clio pilot Tim Dovey battled for the overall win - loosing out to Moffatt on IOP - but securing a class win by just six points over his son Charlie who was at the wheel of a similar machine.

(Image: Geoff Pickett)

Tim’s daughter and co-driver Evie claimed the final podium position ahead of Jess Baker, who having made her trials debut the previous day alongside Charlie, slotted into fourth place  

Tim was awarded the WWW Cup for the best performance across the two events leaving Charlie to take the class win.

The Series Production division saw a four-way contest with the Dutton Phaeton sports car shared by Kevin Roberts and Gareth Jones being the cars to beat.

The former made a positive start to lead his co-driver by five points after the first round but Jones reduced the margin to three as they embarked upon the final eight sections but was unable to make any further progress before the close of play.

Wool driver Donal Doyle led from start to finish in the rear-wheel-drive class with an imperious performance in his 1600 cc Mazda MX5,defeating multiple British champion Barrie Parker (Toyota MR2) by thirteen point.

Weymouth pairing Kev and Sara Dewell took their Ibex Sporting Trials car to a win in the class for specials and Mike Flack from Bradford Abbas took the honours in Class S which catered fort Standard Production Cars registered after 2009 in his Hyundai i10.