For the 9th year running BMSC had been asked to set up and run a stage on the event. Previously we have run Birklands, Blidwith and created a 1.5mile spectator stage at Rother Valley. But for the third consecutive year we created the forest stage Clipstone North, always under the guidance of our own stage commander – Jon Binns.
The weekend began for Gary & me meeting at the caravan storage at 08:45 on Friday, a quick change of vehicles & equipment and we set off, only stopping before the M62 to change driver.
We arrived onsite at 11:30, slightly later than the 11:00 planned but still before the setup had got underway. We split up into small groups each with our assigned tasks to get started, first we all started with SS2. It was a nice day (well for March anyway) so the forest was very busy with walkers and cyclists, most of whom were curious about what we were doing knocking stakes in and taping parts of the forest.
At 17:45 we were running out of light so we packed in for the evening. By 18:30 we had moved the caravan into position and setup for the evening, all in time for meeting at the pub for 7pm for a meal and some drinks. As the first pub was fully booked and the second closed Karen was beginning to panic “I’ve joined the only motor club who cannot find a pub” she said. Luckily the third pub was both open and serving food so by 8 we were sat down with a pint.
At 9am we all met up again (all 8 of us) and we started by finishing off stage two before we all started on stages 10 and 13. Because all three stages share the forest, only parts can be set up and some stakes put in readiness for the changeover. After a lunch break at ‘Center Parcs corner’ we decided that the time had come to start closing parts of the forest and taping off tracks, all in preparation for the 19.17 first car time.
Gary & I where assigned as radio for post 18. While the stage was running I started to wire up the work lights and light bar. Eventually having passed most combinations I reached the golden moment where all the lights worked correctly. Most of the problems with this led from both my stupidity and me not knowing which side is ‘near-side’. Once this was working we tidied the trailer in preparation for the now infamous night changeover.
As 9pm came the course closer passed and 10 minutes later we started changing to the SS10 & SS13 configuration. Our post which was 18 was now post 2 on SS10 so we began changing each junction one by one until we caught up with some of the others. At midnight we agreed it was time to call it a day (is that a night?!) and finish in the morning.
An early start on Sunday to finish building SS10 & SS13 before the first car time of 12.36, as SS10 was running we got some time to relax a little, at least until our ‘very important’ changeover to add a extra junction for the modern cars. After the changeover (and completing Jon’s checklist!!) we could relax for a while and have something to eat, unfortunately SS13 was delayed by about an hour so it wasn’t until 6pm that we actually started clearing up and stripping down (the stage).
We had some good news during the packing up. We had won the stage of the event award for the third time.
With help of some marshals and the event equipment crews the stage was cleared up in the dark by around 8pm. Once we had packed up the caravan we left the site at around 8.30pm to drive home, getting home for bed at around 11.30!
All in all a great event although tiring, just got to recover at work on Monday!
