Focus
Clubsport
Production Car Trials can be tackled in any road-legal vehicle
A demonstration sprint can widen the audience and attract new members
“ WE WORK WITH CLUB MEMBERS, ORGANISERS AND COMPETITORS, TO WORK OUT HOW TO EVOLVE THE SPORT”
DOM GIBBONS turning up at a farm in the middle of nowhere, with ten competitors and five officials. To find new competitors, those kinds of events need to organise demonstration events at shows in the public eye.”
ONE SIZE NEVER FITS ALL Some of the events that run under Certificate of Exemption( CoE) permits are huge – including demonstrations at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the annual international Formula Student event. Although these involve competition, they also include many elements not covered by the standard event types in the NCRs and Fowler must develop an arrangement to suit.
It is not too dissimilar for taster or demonstration events, where clubs come to him with an idea and he determines how to make it work.“ The National Competition Rules( NCRs) are well defined to make it easy to permit standard events,” he explains.“ Things like holding an event at an agricultural show with demonstrations driving up ramps or passenger ride experiences are a little different.
“ About 10 or 15 years ago, we produced a demonstrations and parade guidance document for the clubs to look at, but it’ s very difficult to cover it in the rules because they’ re all different. We do karting events, speed events, hot laps, and we need to make sure it’ s covered under the permit – so the clubs submit the details, and we check it complies with the guidance and ensure the vehicles are scrutinised and drivers have their licenses.”
Fowler also looks after the British Championships for all the Clubsport disciplines – not just top-level British Autotest, Car Trials, and Sporting Trial Championships, but also registering the Clubsport championships that clubs or regions might want to run.
He acts as the Secretariat for the Committees for Autotest, Trials and Cross-Country and explains:“ We work with club members, organisers and competitors, to work out how to evolve the sport. We have our strategy, which is attracting more people to the sport and encouraging them to enter more events and championships, and that is what we focus on.”
Currently, however, the challenge is how to entice newcomers while maintaining the extremely high standards that are found in the British Championships. Fowler has experienced this first-hand, and adds:“ I compete in Car Trials, and I know it takes 20 years before you start getting good! In my club, there’ s lots of people older than me that have been doing it for 50 years and they’ re just experts!
“ The Autotest Championship is at a very high level and there’ s not many people who are at that level. It’ s the
34 Revolution Magazine