Winning the Mountain Challenge 2010

David Liddell

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The Mountain Challenge is the first event of its kind and was invented by Keith Baud from the Classic Rally Association. The way it works is you are given a list of 120 cols in the Alps two weeks before the event and on the evening before you are given a list (25-35 cols) of the target cols for the next day. You then have ten hours to climb as many as you can! Scoring is based on the total metres climbed with a handicap system based on the age of the car with 1961 being the base year and every year older is 100M bonus and vice versa. We started in Evian (nr Geneva), had two nights in Ls Clusaz not far south of Evian and then two nights in Serre Chevalier with a final run to Monte Carlo. The route took in cols in France, Switzerland and Italy.

Mark I’Anson and myself decided to compete in my TR4. There were three other TRs in the entry list, the TR5 of Colin Towers and Robin Morgan, the Ball’s TR3 and the newly restored TR3A of Trina Harley and Sue Shoosmith. Other entries ranged from 1920s Bentleys to 1970s MGBs.

Karen and I drove the car out to the Alps from Newcastle but I was concerned about the tyres; we had a set of Vredestein Sprint Plus which had already done four rallies and I had wanted two new tyres but they had stopped making them. In the end I decided we needed new tyres all round and bought four in France, the only ones available. They were called Roadstone which I think is the budget brand for Firestone, with sidewalls like a French letter!

We were fortunate to be able to spend a couple of days in the Alps working out what this event is all about. We planned a test route over some of the Cols and were able to estimate average speeds from this. As this was the first event of its kind we thought that most people would not have done the same and would be conservative and so we decided to go for it on the first day. This meant driving without stops for the full ten hours! This strategy worked, as we climbed 25 cols on the first day and next best was the 1926 Bentley Special of Paul Carter and Robert Ellis with 21 cols. All in all, a good day’s work.

The next day we took it a bit easier and everything was going well until we were about to climb our last col when there was a road-speed related noise from the rear of the car. We tracked this down to the diff and decided to go straight to the finish and skip our last col. I took off the diff cover off and found a couple of small chips off the crown wheel and a small lump of metal about 20 x 5 x 1mm. After asking around, Kevin Savage told us that it was a plate from the Salisbury LSD. There was nothing else to do but put the cover back, refill with oil and pray… We had climbed 20 cols that day, equalled only by a Dutch Mercedes.

On the third day everything seemed to be going well but on a gravel road we hit a culvert and broke the sumpguard mounting which then concertinaed under the car with one mounting still attached. I could not undo it so foolishly decided to continue till it fell off - which it did a mile or so later taking the silencer with it. When we returned to tarmac we were able to re-attach the silencer (held on with tie wraps!). Later that day on another gravel track the silencer came off but was unrecoverable. So the rest of the day was very noisy; we went through border posts, past police, but no one seemed to care. At the end of the day I found a car accessory place with a ramp, and one of the mechanics spoke English which helped. They did not seem to have a new silencer which would fit but I saw one in their scrap box which looked perfect. We were able to get this fitted but it left very little ground clearance.

The fourth day dawned and the TR would not start; the starter had failed. After a push start we were off. We kept the car running all day or parked on a slope (not too hard in the Alps). After some pretty rough tracks the exhaust was off again. We re-attached it (we were getting good at it by now) and continued only to have it come off again. At the end of the day it was back to the accessory place but they did not have any ramps free. Bill Price and Terry (the backup crew for the event) fixed the exhaust back on and repositioned it, to get a lot more ground clearance. I also thought the pads were running metal on metal so those needed changing. At one stage Colin Towers and even Jeremy (the organiser) were helping! All was done just in time for dinner at eight.

The last day was the longest leg from Serre Chevalier to Monte with 35 cols on offer. We decided to take the loop into Italy with many high cols available. Cars seemed to be going in all directions. The exhaust stayed on which was a relief. The finish was at the top of the Col du Turini and if you were not there by 6pm then you were not counted as a finisher. We were quite conservative and only climbed 1 of the 4 possible cols just before the finish and made it to the finish (parking up the hill of course) with twenty minutes to spare. Others cut it finer with Jon Sandilands and Sylvia Toth in their MGB arriving seconds before 6pm having run out of fuel two or three times! They had in fact gone down a track not recommended by the organisers to bag a high col no-one else went to and had the highest metres for that day.

The prize giving was held at The Cafe de Paris in Monte Carlo at lunchtime the next day. We collected the Mont Blanc Cup for the highest metres with 174,000 metres and 102 cols climbed; the next was Jerry Brown and Colin Francis in their MGB with 95 cols. The Bentley did 94 cols and 161,000 metres, winning the Izeran Trophy for the highest metres on handicap. Paul Wignall and Fred Bent in Paul’s pre-war Talbot 105 won the Stelvio Shield for highest average col height.

Of the 38 starters only two failed to make it to the finish. Unfortunately this included Colin and Robin’s TR5 which suffered front suspension collapse on the last day. We drove 2,300kms over the five days and used over 400 litres of fuel.

A great event, which can be enjoyed as a competitive event, a tour or somewhere in-between. Come and join us next year!

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