RUISLIP IN REVERSE!
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By Tony Wilding EXCELLENT organization was once again a feature of the Lorry Driver of the Year round at the Express Dairy premises at Ruislip on Sunday.
• In spite of a very large entry-158 drivers-and the strangeness of running the classes through the tests in reverse order, the last driver had finished by 4.15 p.m., the complete results were published by 4.30 p.m. and the prizegiving was over before 5 o'clock.
Having heavies first was well appreciated by drivers of these vehicles who, for the first time, were actually able to see the competition instead of spending most of the day keeping up with the vehicle in front while waiting their turn at the marshalling area.
But it made a bit more work for the clerk of the course and his assistants as it gave the heavy drivers plenty of time to raise queries. Not that the officials minded as, I understand, they were able to answer them all satisfactorily.
Some of the drivers of the longer artics found the width-judgment test difficult with the offset pairs of posts having a fixed gap and the job being to get through them centrally. One or two gave up as they thought it was impossible even to get between the posts.
But then J. Hawkins, of Monkton Motors, came along in the longest outfit at Ruislip and made the test look easy in collecting only nine penalties. This driver was well set to win Class G but came to grief on the bay test. He had done so well up to this point that even with 149 penalties on Test 3 he would have topped the class-but he got a lot more than that.
Artic drivers managed the "bay" test quite well provided that they positioned the outfit correctly before the run back into the bay. But many who did not do this were soon at sea. The same applied to Test 2 but drivers of lighter vehicles generally had little trouble on either Test 2 or Test 3.
A number of the classes were very closely fought-none more than A, where three men tied for first place, each with only five penalties more than the winner. In Class C there were just six points between the first and third and in G only seven points separated these positions.
Many names appeared once again in the results, including J. Sartain, who was overall winner at Ruislip in 1965. Smiths Industries did very well once again, Harvey Bradfield and Toyer drivers took first and second in Class 2 as they did last year, and Rockware Glass also had a good day, winning two classes and the team prize. Although men from this company were the only three in F (1) they nevertheless made a hard 'fight of it and W. Rhodes was only just pipped for the overall-winner cup by C. F. Brent who drove remarkably well to incur only 21 penalties Class D.