An Easter weekend to remember
Paul Ducksbury and Diesel, his much-travelled dog, soak up the inclement Easter weather as they take part in the 22 March Carrington Rally Road Run on a 1947 John Deere A. Noel Bridgeman.
Phew! That was some Easter weekend! After meeting up with the understandably depleted number of hardy souls who braved the cold winds, hail and snow showers to complete the Carrington Rally Road Run on the Saturday, it was up at 3.30 next morning to head for the National Vintage Tractor Road Run in Cheshire just as the first flurries of an arctic blast swept across the Eastern Counties and the Midlands.
By Lincoln the flurries had developed into a full-scale snowstorm, with the tunnel effect of great fat flakes slapping into the windscreen making 50mph seem like 70. There was no let-up as I continued my journey towards Newark, Nottingham and Derby, having decided against the much hillier M62 route straight away.
Believing that the ‘National’ that Gordon Cooper and his team had been planning so carefully for the last 12 months might have to be written off because of the weather conditions, I started thinking about headlines like ‘One of those weekends’. Even by Stoke-on-Trent it was still snowing – but then, almost miraculously, soon after I got onto the M6 for the short stretch to the Crewe and Sandbach turn-off, the ragged snowclouds just seemed to melt away and the first tiny glimmer of blue sky came through, with much bigger breaks to the north.
By the time I reached the Beeston Auction Mart site at 7am, the waft of sizzling bacon was coming from the Ringside Restaurant and a lovely spring day was in prospect.
Forgetting the fact that Cheshire happens to be my home county, I must say that the atmosphere at this year’s event was one of the best I can remember. The small organising team made a first-class job of marshalling the tractors into position, signing in and sorting out the late entrants, and the wonderfully scenic route passed through one neat and tidy village after another, with many people running to their gates to wave at the passing cavalcade of more than 400 tractors. The off-road sections, including a sandstone-cobbled lane and a meandering trail through the prettily named Primrose Wood, struck just the right balance, although, considering the charitable nature of the event, I was surprised that the Forestry Commission saw fit to charge the organisers £2 per tractor for the privilege, and I urge them to reconsider.
Many of the drivers had heeded co-founder Ashley Godsall’s call to fly national and county flags so that those alongside the route would realise the national nature of the event, and there was even the maple leaf of Canada flying from a grey Ferguson.
At Kelsall, farmer Frank Walker allowed the organisers the use of a large flat grass field for the lunchtime stop, and the hundreds of tractors were marshalled into long, straight lines very efficiently indeed. The only snag was the queue for the burger bar – but that’s nothing new!
As I walked along the tractor ranks, taking notes and enjoying many short conversations with the participants, my thoughts drifted towards two important factors that could well affect such events in future – the ever-rising cost of fuel, what we might do about it in the future, and the cost of the tractors themselves to ordinary enthusiasts.
A letter from David Bates reminds us that, with the credit squeeze tightening, people are not going to pay what he calls ‘stupidly high prices’ any more. 1940s’ TVOs like the Allis-Chalmers U, Case D etc are still being sold at largely the same values as four years ago, and David believes the market is now flooded with classics like the MF 135, Ford 5000 and the like.
“The speculators have got sheds full of run-of-the-mill classics owing them far too much, and it will be a long time before they can cash in and make big (or any) profits,” he says.
Maybe he has a point.
Regarding fuel, Jane Brooks has written an interesting piece about biofuels in this issue. I’m all for finding good alternatives to mineral fuels, but, as she says, clearing large areas of dense oxygen-giving rain forest and growing biofuel plants instead is surely defeating the whole object.
The issue isn’t nearly as clear-cut as it might seem.
Editor, Pete Kelly
