June 27th 2016
The Black Mountains Classic Tour was voted a great success by the participants who travelled from far and wide to take part. There were crews from Surrey, Derby, Sheffield and even one from Florida all lapping up the traditional Welsh weather that was on offer. The cars started lining up at Trefecca Road from early in the morning where breakfast rolls and tea or coffee was taken in the cosy confines of the well appointed rugby club. Clerk of the course Chris Phillips jetted straight back in from Turkey in the early hours specially to deliver his own brand of drivers briefing and at 9 o'clock or thereabouts the first car was flagged away by club president Brian Dennis in the direction of Llangynidr to tackle the notorious narrow bridge. From there an amble through the countryside eventually led to Ewyas Harold for morning refreshment provided by the local village Hall committee - and very good it was too. It was good to see Herefordshire rallying legend Phil Collins out and about and enjoying the line up of cars.
The second section of route became a little bit more serious with some narrower sections taking the cars onto some old road rally routes which eventually led to Hay on Wye for lunch. There had been much debate about a tulip that threw a lot of crews but the organisers maintain that it was indeed correct but perhaps a little ambiguous. Still it kept people on their toes and there were still a lot of smiles.
By the time the third section started the heavens had opened but again this seemed to be perfectly acceptable and the cloud was high enough to make Hay Bluff a good drive. A loop around Painscastle culminated in a crossing of the narrow bridge at Trericket and climb up to Brechfa Common before meandering back to Talgarth to meet the Mayoress, Jackie Wilding , to be presented with event coasters. A short drive back to the rugby club was all that was then left where the bar was open and a very nice meal was available to all including the hard working marshals.
It would be remiss not to mention the work done by club members and they all performed admirably on what could have been a better day weather wise. A few club members were out in their classics including Malcolm & Liz Rich in the Anglia that Malcolm rallied last year and Liam Griffiths with Pete Chappelle in their modern classic Peugeot 205 GTi. Sadly the Pug objected to being on British soil in light of the Brexit vote and decided to blow its head gasket!
