Monday Musings: 1956 Roy Fedden Trophy Trial

These days, the Roy Fedden Sporting Trial is an annual round of the BTRDA Sporting Trials Championship.  The best sporting trials drivers in the country (and the world, actually) come and wrestle their specialised cars up hills we prepare for them at 11:02 every Remembrance Sunday.  The hills are so steep that spectators and marshals often fall over whilst walking up them.

That’s followed a few weeks later by the Allen Classic Trial, which is where road cars travel around Bristol negotiating lots of (slightly) less tricky hills we prepare for them. Back in 1956, the Roy Fedden Trophy Trial was run to a format that would in today’s terms be called a Classic Trial.  Not because the cars are classics, but because the format is the classical one.  Why am I telling you this?  It’s because on this day in 1956, we ran the Roy Fedden Trophy Trial just a few days before Sir Roy Fedden‘s 71st Birthday.

Cars travelled a 55 mile route, according to the Evening Post and our magazine quoted that as “nearly 60 miles” in the rather verbose report on the event.

Of course, the lack of enthusiasm may have been down to the loss of our primary racing circuit and hillclimb venue alongside the impending petrol rationing and a case of Foot and Mouth disease.  Our outgoing chairman, C.B. Salter remarked on this in his last column as Chairman.