Wanted: good home for LDoY
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SUNDAY sees the culmination of 11 months' hard work by more than 2,000 volunteers when the finals of the Lorry Driver of the Year Competition take place at Cranfield in Bedfordshire. As the officials make their way home late on Sunday, weary after 11 hours on their feet, some will be asking if it was worth all the effort.
Regretably, the LDoY which CM continues to sponsor, achieves very little in relation to the time and effort put into it. When it started it was a modern attractive event. That was a quarter of a century back and the event has changed little.
Almost a decade ago there was a suggestion to introduce a drawbar class. It still has not happened, except as a sideshow. At the same time, there was talk that the event should be more of a spectator attraction. It remains as it was — dull, uninteresting and unintelligible to the dwindling crowd on the side ropes. Sunday should be used as an opportunity to carry out a spectator survey. The first questionable factor surely is the venue.
Cranfield may be logistically ideal for the tests as they are designed, but it is not a spectator venue. More could be achieved in Battersea Park, London, where other similar events attract London's populace and tourists.
The objects of the LDoY are laudible. It contributes greatly to road safety, a difficult commodity to market and sell. It would sell better in a new venue.
When the competition committee meets after the event, it should ask: what did all the effort achieve? Having quantified that it should turn its attention to making the 1985 event more attractive in every way to competitors, spectators and the media.
If not, it will slide slowly into oblivion.