National Champion Beaten in Express Dairy Final
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BY A. J. P. WILDING THE standard of driving at the
Express Dairy Co.'s Driver of the Year competition on Sunday was excellent, but this was only to be expected when 11 of the 32 competitors were class winners in rounds of the national LDOY competition. And three were class winners in the final, one of them— J. Hudson—being this year's Lorry Driver of the Year. This year has in fact been a memorable one for the company in the LDOY competition and the success of 1. Hudson in the final put the company's name on the championship trophy for the second time in three years.
Drivers from all over the country took -"art in the competition which was held at the Ruislip. Middlesex, depot, eligibility being by winning local depot competitions or by being a class winner at a national eliminating centre. The
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drivers took identical Bedford TK 5-tonners through four tests, only one of which—kerb parking—was the same as those used in the national events.
The other three were designed to test the drivers' skill to the utmost. One consisted of reversing on the blind side into a loading bay whilst another required driving to the end of the course and stopping between posts which the driver had previously set for width, and then reversing between offset posts which were set to the same width on the starting line. The third involved a complicated manoeuvre between two gaps in a barrier running down the centre of the course; through one going forward to the end of the course, then reversing through both to return to the starling line.
The loading bay test proved to be the most difficult and 14 competitors failed to complete it. Only 13 got less than 300 penalties and only nine less than 100. The manceuvring tests also sorted the wheat from the chaff and here only eight got less than 100, but all except two completed the test, albeit with much scattering of posts.
No one is so vulnerable as a champion and so it turned out for I. Hudson, who finished third behind T. Ince and D. Colvin, both of whom were class winners in their national eliminators. But in coming third Mr. Hudson showed excellent consistency as, apart from winning the national title this year, he was the Express champion in 1964. And he did much better than the other two class winners in the 195 final, R. Harrington and T. Jeffrey, who had a bad day.