R.A.C. Trials : Another Point of View.
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By Basil H. Joy late Technical Secretary of the Club).
In presuming to lay before readers of " THE COMMERCIAL VIOTOR " any remarks on the subject of the recently-pubished Rules of the Commercial Vehicle Trials, I am almost iaturally impelled to look at the question chiefly from the leant ot view of the organisation of what must be a very ,ig and difficult undertaking. Having been through the ail] between the years 1899 and 1905, which included Richriond, the 1,000-inile Trial, the third Liverpool Trials, Glas;ow, Crystal Palace 1902 (as a competitor), Crystal Palace 903, Hereford, and the preliminary proposals for Van 'rials in 1904 and 1905, it is of necessity the side with :hich I feel most familiar : I only hope that my remarks lay not be without interest as presenting an aspect of the -ials which does not in the ordinary way come into prolinence, and of whose magnitude few outside the Corntittee can have the smallest conception, involving as it does 3al, hard, strenuous work and hours, and about double that would be approved by a trades union.
The Advantages of Sundry Postponements.
The Royal Automobile Club Commercial Vehicle rials " is rather an elaborate title to which to have to keep tferring, and I therefore propose to take the liberty of ab7eviating this to the simple " Van Trials " as they have een so generally called any time this last fOur years. hough the Van Trials have suffered frequent postponeemits for one reason or another, to the great disgust and sappointrnent of many, I am personally not at all sorry at they have only now assumed definite shape, and I feel ire that there are large numbers, especially in the Trade, ho will share these views. Originally intended to be held 1904, I am convinced than the delay, although it has not :en entirely intentional on the part of the R.A.C., is nevereless wise in view of the splendid show of suitable vehicles Olympia in March last, compared with the state of the Idustry in ig04, at which date it is open to question if fficient entries would have been received to make the -ials more than a farce. I think, too, that this delay has ought about, in fact has rendered necessary, the radical ang-e in the scheme of the Trials as is now contained in e heading under the title of " Object." The original idea the Van Trials was to park the vehicles in a central pot, and to run them daily on varying routes, returning the depOt each night, and under the strictest observation, the same lines as the 1903 Car Trials, and to make the :ards based upon the observers' records the outstanding iture of the Trials. A further idea, and one which reved favour in some quarters, was to place the various rnpeting vehicles at the disposal of big trading concerns, be used by them in their daily delivery work, so that they mid be working all the time under actual service condins, with the strains of constant stopping and re-starting, ding and unloading, manoeuvring, etc. This, however, ?ears to me to have been an impracticable plan, as, firstly, :urate observation would have been difficult, and, secondly, various vehicles could not have been worked under the ictly equal conditions of loads, roads, weather, and other cumstances so essential for purposes of comparison with a w to awards.
"Demonstration' the Keynote.
rhe main object of the Trials will now be seen to be a big lemonstration " tour on exactly the same lines as the oo-mile Trial of 'goo : the main feature will be to create eally big and striking advertisement for the commercial tor industry as a whole, whilst the destination of the ards, in singling out individual vehicles as the best, or only, ones worthy of notice, will not have such great ight. This, at all events, is my impression of what the ults will be, judging by the experience of the i,000-mile al, and in the xgo3 Trials, from the former of which the vement generally benefited to a certainly greater extent portionately than the individual winners. It is right, , that this should be so under the conditions, as it is per:1y obvious to anyone who has had any experience of organising large trials, that when the depot is changed each night it is quite impossible to ensure the same strict observation of the vehicles while in the depot as in the case-where they all return to the same depot each night, when all the doorkeepers and other officials can be drilled beforehand in their duties.
Difficulties of Shifting Depots.
In the 1903 Trials, when there were just under lea cars. to be kept under ceaseless supervision for about three weeks, it was found that even with the most carefully-elaborated printed instruction sheets, and detailed time-tables, it took a couple of days to drill the Cerberus appointed to each door in his duties of rigidly, and by force if necessary, excluding all unauthorised persons from access to the cars, and this, be it added, only by close personal attention on the spot, at all hours of the day and night, of the organising official
responsible for that duty. When there are fresh doorkeepers throughout each night, which I imagine will be necessary in the case of the shifting depots, taking into consideration the large number of men who will have to be employed as a whole, infallibility is impossible, and it will, I am afraid, be easy to beguile a doorkeeper with a plausible reason for admittance, seeing that points are sure to arise with which even the organising officials are unable to deal without reference to a committee.
What, then, can be expected of the recruit at the door? I lay great stress upon this point, as, in cases where the award is everything, it is absolutely essential that the data upon which the awards are made, and nothing more so than the record of everything that is done to the vehicles, should be above suspicion. I am quite sure that, with the shifting depOt, no official would care to put his name ID any document relating to the amount of repairs carried out in the depOt at night as fulfilling this condition. It will be remembered' that, in the 'AKA-mile Trial, no attempt was made to observe the cars, or, indeed, to obtain any but a most general record of replacements or repairs, so that there is no precedent to follow, and entirely new arrangeinents will have to be planned. As far as I am aware, the L.S.-P.T.A. third Heavy Vehicle Trials, of igal, were the only ones in which shifting depots and strict observation have been attempted, and as this was only for four nights, and three centres, and as, after the first day, there were only eight vehicles left out of the ii which were presented, the difficulties were not great.
A Sustained Press Campaign, and Representative Local Committees.
This automatic relegation of the winning of an award to a position of minor importance brings into still greater prominence the need for very thoroughly organised Press arrangements, not only in London, but in all the towns proposed to be visited, and, practically speaking, it will entail the appointment in each instance of a local committee, or, at all events, a local secretary, who shall have plenty of time and a good knowledge of the necessities of the case so as to work up a really good boom all along the neighbouring portion of the route. Unless the local authorities and Press can be worked up to a state of enthusiasm, and particulars of the Trials are brought fully and often under the notice of people likely to he interested, apart from mere local sightseers, the value of the Trials will be very greatly discounted. The Press is the most important of all, as x,000 will read for every one that xvill see, and it would entail the whole time of a special Press Secretary to do the thing properly—his whole duty being to Boom, Boom, Boom !
In the 1,000-mile Trial, preparations were begun seven or eight months before the event, and they were needed. Claude Johnson—that prince of organisers—spent many weeks, if not months, in the various towns, organising everybody and everything, and the results were witnessed in the huge crowds that lined all the streets of the big towns several deep, and in the large bodies of 'sightseers collected together
at every cross road throughout the 'Joao miles. From him, daily budgets ut intormation as to routes, controls, local committees, petrol supplies, depots, hotels, etc., etc., poured into the Automobile Club at Whitehall Court, where the headquarters then were, and these were sorted out and duly inserted in their proper places, in a huge bound draft of the Official Programme, by a staff of three assistants, and even this part was no light task.
Thoroughness of Organisation Imperative : No Time to be Lost.
The same thoroughness will be necessary in this case, and the period—now less than four months—still remaining before the Trials are to begin is all too short a time in which to do all that should be done : in fact, with the greatlyincreased scope of the work of the Club, it is not easy to see how even all that is absolutely necessary is to be done in the time. This is a serious consideration, as there are now more people on the look-out to criticise the Club than there were in the year two, and the Trials must be a big success or they were better left alone, since, at this stage, no excuses will be accepted as to want of experience. In this connection, it must be borne in mind that in 1900 there were only 18 days' actual running, representing to towns to be visited and organised*, whereas now, as far as can be judged from the Rules, there will be considerably more, each extra town of course involving a considerable increase in the labour of preparation, and the time necessary therefor.
To my mind, in addition to those due to the shorter time available, the difficulties of organisation of the Van Trials as compared with the i,000-mile Trial will be stupendous. Then, the arrangements had to cover Publicity—as now, with a capital P—a suitable hall for storing some 84 light vehicles, none weighing over 35 cwt., and that was about all. Now, it will be necessary to arrange for Publicity, on the same or a larger scale, and a suitable building, in each town, which shall not only be large enough to hold all the vehicles—and there should be many more than in igoo—but the floor of the buildings must be strong enough to sustain the great weights of the " G Class " vehicles, and the provision of these will, I am afraid, involve some difficulty from both the space and weight points of view. In addition to all this, the buildings must be capable of being arranged to exclude unauthorised persons, and yet to admit the large number of drivers and observers as and when required, and with the necessary checks as already pointed out above. There must, too, be electric light, plenty of water for the steam vehicles and for washing, which latter includes hoses and taps, and a solid floor with plenty of drains ; electriccharging stations, weighing machines for fuel, measuring arrangements for water, etc., etc.—a truly formidable list, and I anticipate that the provision of suitable housing will largely govern the route of the Trials.
There is, however, one very important point which will be gained by the " Tour" scheme. Fifty or a hundred heavy vehicles running over the same roads, day after day for a month, would be pretty certain to produce either an injunction or a very heavy claim for damage to the roads, and it is doubtful if the Club could have contracted out of its liability under such a clause as No. 5o; or, even if it could, entrants would hardly be likely to submit to such a risk. In spite of the greater difficulties involved in the present scheme, it is probable, therefore, that it is the only practical one : but there ought to be eight months in which to prepare for it instead of only four..
Numerous Unsettled Points are left for the Judges.
Passing on to the subject of the Rules themselves, one can hardly help being struck by the fewness of those which are of real importance as bearing upon the conduct of the Trials themselves. One recognises a whole lot of old friends that have done duty in many previous trials, chiefly by way of safeguarding the Club. No. 40 is, indeed, quite greyheaded, and looks almost out of place, whilst, on the other hand, No. 4 is the gist of the whole thing, and the settling of which has, I am sure, been more responsible for the delay in the issuing of these Rules than any other point. The wording only accentuates the need stated above—" Adver
tise, Advertise, Advertise I " The Club must realise this clearly.
1 would only refer to one other rule (No. 23), the very brevity and vagueness of which, compared with what might be supposed to be its importance under other conditions, indicates I think that members of the Committee already had in their minds the idea that the awards are not the main thing. If it were otherwise, competitors would like, and would be entitled, to know, before entering their vehicles, the names of the Judges who are to have such autocratic powers placed in their hands : they would also, imagine, like to have some further idea as to the relativE values which are to be assigned to the various points upor which the awards are to be marked. This latter point is z sine qua non, if the Judges' report and the awards are to Ix of any value at all as a guide to prospective purchasers, eacl of whom will be influenced by the various conditions of hi: own particular requirements : if settled now, it would alsc save a lot of time in the issue of the awards, promptness ir which is of prime importance. Each of the 17 points re ferred to in the rule should have a maximum value assignea to it, that value having a carefully-considered ratio to eacl of the other points, and the Judges should receive a clea: indication of what deductions are to be made for failuri under each head, as it is upon the amount of the deductions and not upon the totals, that the destination of the award depends, and there is no automatic marking by performano which was so keenly fought for by the trade in the 190; Trials, The Cases of Calculation.
In order to make my meaning clear, supposing a total c 5o marks is to be given for " accessibility," it should b clearly stated whether the most accessible vehicle is to ia ceive full marks and the least accessible none, or whether a ideally-accessible vehicle should be taken as representin, maximum, and the competing vehicles should suffer dedta tions in proportion to their relative failure to come up t that standard. The latter seems to me to be much the fairE way, as the difference between the most accessible and tb least accessible vehicle might be so trifling that the 5o poin would represent too great a difference in the marks. !Ind( either system it will, of course, entail the Judges' resolvin themselves into a number of sub-committees, each sub-con mittce taking a certain number of the points and examinin the whole of the competitors on those points, as it is man festly impossible for all the Judges to look into all the point In order to assist them in their labours, and to ensu their consideration of all the points on all the vehicles, carefully-schemed note-book should be prepared for ther with blanks to be filled in by them under the various heal for each of the vehicles, so that none may be overlookel the entire omission of the consideration of a point vital affecting the awards has not been unknown in the pa: owing to the failure to provide some such system.
One of the headings under this rule is " Cost of Cc riage," which will presumably include cost of repairs al replacements. This would appear to call for a very cares check on the charging price of those replacements, that th may be the ordinary charging price to the public, and r a specially low price decided upon by the makers for t purposes of the Trial. Further, it is not clear whether voluntary stops mentioned in Rule 31 are to be included points having their effect on the award; it is not stated, it is, of course, obvious that they should do so. and that automatic value should be assigned to them. Rule 29 WOl appear to be an excellent method of getting over the di culty of a late starter keeping the dela& open very late night awaiting his arrival, or even permitting him to m out a depot altogether, so as to catch up the rest of i procession. Altogether, the Rules appear to foreshadow just suet trial as is required to do for the commercial vehicle wl the Loon mile Trial undoubtedly did for the private car, t I look for a very big entry of makers and agents.