
Regularity Rallies & The Three Castles Trial

Regularity rallies for classic cars take place on public roads, (usually yellows and browns in Ordnance Survey map parlance) open to other traffic, with driving tests on private land. Competitors have to deal with all the usual commonplace issues on quiet country lanes such as other, non-competing cars, cyclists, families out walking, farmers driving animals between fields and farms, farm traffic and horse riders etc; they are all part and parcel of the competition. Rallies vary from one day to multi-day/night endurance events.
Competitors are divided between Experts (either of the crew having finished in the top ten of recognised events in the last eight years), Novices (neither crew members having won a Novice class award from recognised events) and Semi-Experts (neither crew member is eligible for any other class). Some events, limited to Experts only will run-on into the night.
Cars are usually divided between Heritage (makes and models manufactured before 1st January 1940, and sub-divided between Saloons/Tourers and Sports), and classes for various makes and models registered before 31st December 1959, 1960 to 1967, 1968 to 1974, 1975 to 1981 and 1982 to 1985. For the Semi-Experts, the age classes are sub-divided between various engine capacities.

In the heritage class, Bentley Derbys of the mid 1920s to 1930s are common. Elsewhere, weapons of choice are Austin Healeys, Ford Escorts, MGBs, Mini-Cooper Ss, Porsche 911s and Volvo Amazons (armchair rallying!).
In the 1982 to 1985 class, older VW Golf GTis (Mk 1s and 2s) are beginning to appear. However, there is always a wide range of other makes and models. Cars are limited to having only two spotlights, and body modifications are not allowed.
Internally, most crews use electronic navigation aids such as Brantz, Halda or Monit speed and distance calculators, accurate to 1/100th of a mile. Average speed calculators are not allowed.
Routes are defined by a variety of methods, dependent upon the size, status and type of event – tulip diagrams (basic and very easy), herringbones, map references and spot heights etc, and whatever devilment the devious mind of the organiser can devise.
Road regularity sections can be anything from up to 10 miles to 30/40 miles. Competitors are required to maintain low average speeds (anything from 22/23mph to 27/28mph), which change as the regularity progresses. Although that may seem to be easy, on narrow lanes with other, non-competing traffic and users, it can be more difficult. Scattered through the regularities are secret Regularity Timing Points (RTPs) manned by marshals, timing competitors to the second. Timing is with Liege clocks – resembling hand-held stop watches, displaying hours, minutes and seconds, storing competitors’ times on chips which are downloaded to the Results Team’s laptops to calculate the results. Arriving early at an RTP will incur double the penalty of arriving late.


Driving tests on private land, usually on sealed surface roads, will include slaloms between cones, reversing and stopping in boxes and stop-astride lines etc, varying from ca. two to seven/eight miles. Each will have a ‘bogey time’, exceeding which incurs time penalties.
For the last 20+ years, I have been marshaling on regularity runs for classic cars, standing at the roadside, timing competitors into our controls, entering times onto their time-cards and keeping a check sheet, recording times and any infractions, eg, not stopping astride the line, wrong directions of approach and/or departure. Being outside jobs, I have ‘enjoyed’ everything from temperatures up to 35C, violent hailstorms (Slovenia/Croatia on the 2023 Classic Marathon) to -10C (the North York Moors) and six inches of snow on top of an inch of ice (the Cairngorms) at 1:00am to 2:00am on various Le Jogs in December. For more information, see website below.

The Three Castles Trial
I marshalled on the Three Castles Trial from 4th-7th June last year, based at the Imperial Hotel, Llandudno and running three RTPs, a regularity and a test start.
The morning of Tuesday 4th was taken up with ca. 80 competitors lining up on the promenade to be scrutineered, with great interest from the public. The afternoon was a prologue with a regularity, on which I ran the final RTP and one test. Although the results did not count towards the main event, it gave the competitors an opportunity to get their brains in gear for the next three days, over a total of 500 miles.
Wednesday, the first full day, started with a regularity around the Great Orme, then to Lake Vyrnwy and back via three more regularities and three tests, one on the track at the Parc Glasfryn Activity Centre. I had an easy day with just one RTP five miles west of Pwllheli. At the finish of the day, in the Heritage Class, the Lomas/Glover 1936 Riley Sprite (on 5’20”) was leading the Dyas/Taylor 1937 Bentley Derby 4¼ (5’41”) and the Sue Shoosmith/Trina Harley 1926 Bentley 3-4½ (5’49”). Overall, the Walker/Toohey 1962 Lotus Elan (4’52”) was leading the Bloxidge/Canavan 1985 VW Golf GTi Mk2 (5’04”) and the Crosby/Johnson 1966 Austin Mini Cooper S (5’19”). When talking with Paul Crosby in the evening, he was already sceptical about his/Pete Johnson’s chances of beating Walker/Toohey. On the road regularities, the leaders had five seconds of total penalties, Bloxidge/Canavan three seconds, and Crosby/Johnson eight seconds. The Elan was just too quick on the driving tests.
Early Thursday morning on the A55 en-route to our first RTP north-west of Denbigh, I was passed by the Ward/Azaria 1952 Fraser Nash Le Mans Replica, just back from competing in the Monaco Historique; I was cruising at ca. 75mph, and he passed me at ca. 85mph+ - obviously delayed at the start! It was a day of eight regularities and four tests, the first round at the Llyn Brenig Reservoir, the third at the Range Motorsport Centre, and the last using the ascent to the Lake Vyrnwy Hotel, where the competitors had to contend with 20 giant tractors/trailers on a circular silage run with much manoeuvring and reversing by the competitors. At the lunch halt, the Bronwyn Burrell/Suzanne Barker 1969 Austin Maxi (in which Burrell competed in and completed the 1970 World Cup London-Mexico Rally) required help from the mechanics in one of the mobile workshops to deal with sagging hydrolastic suspension, which they managed to patch-up and get it to the day’s finish, but unfortunately it was unable to start on Friday.

The afternoon RTP, south-west of Denbigh, had long distance views towards Gwydyr Forest Park. At the finish of day two, in the Heritage Class, Dyas/Taylor had taken the lead (on 15’44”) from Shoosmith/Harley (16’09”) and Lomas/Glover had dropped to third (16’16”). Overall, the first three were unchanged – Walker/Toohey (14’00”) from Bloxidge/Canavan (14’45”) and Crosby/Johnson (14’48”).
Friday had five regularities and eight tests. My first control, west of Ruabon, was a regularity start, where I had a chance for a brief chat with the competitors; I have got to know many of them well after 20+ years, then back to Llandudno, where the event finished with three early afternoon tests on the Great Orme.

Most of the private road is barely two cars wide, with a vertical rock face on one side and a 250m drop to the sea, protected by a three-foot stone wall, on the other. It was being run clockwise, so the sea was on the navigator’s side! I was running the start of the third and final test. The competitors finished the second test, then rolled forward only 50m to my start. Drivers of the Heritage Class were having to cool their brakes by pouring water over them, and other cars were arriving with boiling engines and smoking brakes, especially two Lancia Fulvia Coupes. Several of the navigators were clearly flustered by the speeds and proximity of the wall protecting them from the drop to the sea!
There were clouds of adrenalin emanating from the drivers’, so none of the usual banter – just get them in, counted down, and off. On my Test, of the Heritage Class, the Shoosmith/Harley Bentley was fastest on 2’29”, and overall, the 1970 Haselden/Kirkham Morris Mini Cooper S (2’13”).
In the final results, the winners of the Heritage Class were Dyas/Taylor in the 1937 Bentley Derby 4¼ (32’06”), followed by Shoosmith/Harley (32’28”) and the Fraser Nash Le Mans Replica of Ward/Azaria (1hr. 04’14”). It is fantastic that after three days and 500 miles, only 22 seconds separated the first two cars; 87 and 98 years old respectively!

Overall, the Walker/Toohey Lotus Elan won on 28’37”, followed by the Crosby/Johnson Austin Mini Cooper S (29’57”), and the Bloxidge/Canavan VW Golf GTi Mk2 (30’02”), suffering fuel-feed problems from Tuesday’s prologue. Bloxidge/Canavan lost second place on the third Great Orme test due to a single cone fault. Paul Crosby’s prediction on the Wednesday night almost proved to be true – after three days, the regularity penalties of the top three were Walker/Toohey on 32 seconds, Bloxidge/Canavan on 36 secs. And Crosby/Johnson on 41 secs.


Three Castles Trial images copyright Max Earey and featured with kind permission. All rights reserved.
The highest-placed Lancia was the David and Sally Ward 1972 Fulvia Coupe, fifth on 30’32”, and the first of the Semi-Experts. The winners of the Novice Class were David Wilson/Stewart Rust who were 31st overall in their 1965 Fiat 2300S Coupe; Novices no longer!
Of the 78 starters, nine were classified as non-finishers.
Colin Clapshoe