2021 BTRDA Car Trials Championship Final
The 2021 BTRDA Car Trials Championship commenced at The Ivinghoe Spring Trial in April with twenty-four competitors registered for the championship. There were eleven rounds to be held around the country at the usual venues with the addition of a new Yorkshire weekend. Unfortunately, the last round (Clwyd trial) was cancelled due to lack of entries; however during the year most events were well attended. By the last event only fourteen competitors qualified for the final with six drivers having enough points to put them in contention the Gold Star.
The final this year was hosted by North Wales Car Club at the recently visited Cymru trial site at Hendrellwyn-y-Maen Farm, near Llangernyw on Sunday 7th November 2021. This was later than the usual date of early October which caused some clashes with some regional trials and finals resulting in some of the main contenders choosing not to travel to North Wales and they competed more locally. Nine championship contenders entered the final with over half the entrants having been previous national champions or award winners so the competition was going to be close. With such a low entry across the three classes normal Class 1 contenders decided to enter in Class 2 to even out the scoring index.
This meant that for the first time Class 1 had no competitors in the final.
Class 2 consisted of Paul Myatt, newly crowned MSUK champion Rupert North, three-time Gold Star winners Henry Kitching and Neil Mackay, and current Gold Star Champion Trevor Moffatt.
Class 3 consisted of Ian Nute, 2016 Bronze Star winner Kevin Roberts, 2019 Bronze star winner John Charles and nine times Gold Star Champion Barrie Parker.
The day of the final had quite reasonable weather with only a threat of rain not amounting to much with a stiff breeze slowly but surely doing it’s best to dry the sodden ground from the previous days hard rain. Initial going was slippery in places with areas of thick mud which later started to give some grip as the day progress. 8 Hills were laid out across two fields on some mounds and slopes giving a good variety of challenges.
Round 1 saw Trevor Moffatt take a seven-point lead over Rupert North and Neil Mackay with a significant climb on hill 7 only dropping two points compared to nine for the other competitors with Henry Kitching a further ten marks behind.
In Class 3 scores were more closely match with Kevin Roberts taking a two-point lead over Barrie Parker after a similar climb on hill 7 with John Charles a further two points behind.
Round 2 saw improvement on scores by Trevor, Rupert and Henry as the ground was starting to give some grip. Trevor further extended his lead and had a significant class lead at lunch.
Class 3 saw the lead change with Barrie having a good round dropping five less than Kevin who remained three points behind. John slipped further behind with Ian Nute a long way off the class scores.
After lunch round 3 again saw improvements in everybody’s scores in both classes as the ground gave way to more grip. In class 2 Trevor maintained and improved his lead over nearest rival Rupert.
Class 3 saw Barrie had a lot more success than Kevin and started to open up a significant class lead.
The final saw the marshals make a lot of changes to the hills with tight turns and slow approaches to steep climbs to drastically alter the scoring back to the levels at the start of the day.
In class 2 Trevor dropped scores to Rupert but it was not enough to change the class lead with Trevor winning the class. Rupert was second followed by Neil, Henry and Paul.
In class 3 Barrie slightly improved his lead over Kevin, John and Ian taking the class win.
With such a small entry the maths for the indexing did not take long. Trevor Moffatt won the event overall and with the twenty-five points awarded took the Gold Star championship for the second year in a row. The Silver Star was awarded to Neil Mackay with the runner-up being awarded to Kevin Roberts. Bronze Star was awarded to Paul Myatt with runner-up being awarded to Ian Nute. Class wins went to Rupert North (class 2) and Barrie Parker (Class 3).
On behalf of all the competitors I wish to thank North Wales Car Club for being excellent hosts and running an enjoyable and challenging event.
Trevor Moffatt