JD in cahoots with the ACU?
By John Dickinson on 11th Jan 07
What's going on here? T+MX Editor caught fraternising with the enemy. Read on..
I HAD a brilliant Saturday evening in cohorts with the ACU. Shock – Horror! And with an ACU Trials and Enduro Committee member actually. Eh? OK, it was with Mick Wren and the evening had nothing to do with the ACU and everything to do with celebrating Mick's 50th birthday – there, now you all know!
I have known Mick for more years than both of us care to remember and you won't find a more dedicated trials man than MJ Wren.
In our distant Youth, long before I became a T+MX-man and long before Mick thought of taking up ACU high office, we rode in hundreds of trials together and enjoyed many a laugh.
The funniest I recall was when we were waiting our turn in a queue to ride a section when, in the pouring rain, Mick leant across my bike to kill the motor on my 325 Suzuki just as I was dropping the clutch to enter the section. The result was that we BOTH got a fair old electrical shock as the cheap and nasty kill-button earthed out and the big flywheeled Suzuki took seemingly forever to die as we, wide-eyed, crackled and smoked in the finger area.
Another time we were bowling up the A74 to Scotland en-route to the Loch Lomond Two Day Trial. Transport was Mick's car and trailer and as we were whistling along somewhere north of Gretna, Mick commented, "This is where I got a puncture in a trailer tyre last year.” No sooner said than the trailer started snaking violently as, right on cue, we picked up a flat! At least Mick had a spare wheel, which is more than he had the previous year when the puncture was fixed by twice-wrapping an 18 inch trials tube round the tiny 10 inch trailer wheel. And a nosy copper happened along just as the bodge was being carried out...
One day we both got the blame when we ‘lost' Nigel Birkett's factory Suzuki off the back of his Lancia. The occasion was the Wetherby club's Superstars trial and we had made an early-morning start, in the dark. Mick was driving, I was navigating and Birks was asleep in the back. As dawn began to break I noticed that there was no sign of the Suzuki through the rear window. A quick halt found the bike horizontal although still clinging to the rack but with the throttle, handlebar and front brake lever all but worn away as they were dragged along the ground. New bars, throttle and lever were hurriedly fitted before the start. You don't get that kind of action in these days of expensive transporters I tell you.
All these stories, and more (such as when Mick almost wrote-off two coaches with his Mini pick-up...) were trotted out as we enjoyed the boy's birthday bash, sank a few pints of Hawkshead Gold bitter and attacked huge lamb shanks in the manner personified by Henry the eighth.
Many T+MX readers will know Mick from his contributions to the letters pages. He can be quick to react to my occasional ACU – related comments and I respect him for that. Our opinions don't always concur – and why should they? We are all entitled to our views and like myself, Mick is not shy to put his name to his view, unlike so many in this world, and always has the courtesy to reply directly to myself, not just bitch anonymously elsewhere.
When it all pans out, it usually transpires that we actually agree on whatever it is we are arguing about anyway – we just have our own ways of getting there!
Basically, we both put a lot of our time, effort and money into following the sport of trials that we have kept faith with through thick and thin for around 40 years. We both do our best for the sport in our own ways.
As a mere 50-year-old, Mick is very likely referred to as ‘The Youngster' on the Trials Committee – and as such he has a long apprenticeship still to serve. At least he has if T+MX correspondent Barry Robinson's experience is anything to go by. Barry was still known as "t'lad” on the ACU Ilkley Motor Club's trials committee when he had turned 70! "T'lad'll do it!” was the Ilkley catch-phrase.
I know one thing, it will be music to my ears if someone calls me "t'lad” the day after I draw my pension... but no doubt it will be some other, possibly less flattering, epithet...