Last week we told you about Jeremy’s adventures on the Frazer Nash Alpine Trial, which concluded on Friday. Now that he’s back from his exhilarating trip, we thought you’d like to know how the final two days of the trial panned out.
On Thursday and Friday Jeremy and Julian Rodway (who owns the Super Sport) took on the Southern route, which brought about just as many surprises as the Northern route did!
As you can see from the above picture, Thursday required an early start from their base in Valloire. In one day Jeremy and Julian drove 267 miles where they ended up at the Chalet Hotel Montana in Le Sauze, France. The route passed through the Col du Galibier, a 8399 ft mountain pass in the southern region of the French Dauphiné Alps, as well as Briacon, a commune in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. A particular highlight on Thursday was the special stage at Colle delle Finestre, a mountain pass in the Cottian Alps, consisting of 9.9 miles of unmetalled road.
While (against some expectations) the car ran smoothly for the entire 267 miles, the long drive must have got to Julian because he left his passport and a number of other valuables in Briacon! Luckily, he was able to retrieve them the following day on the route back.
As you can imagine, once the pair arrived at the hotel, they enjoyed a couple of beers during early evening servicing followed by a well deserved kip before rising again for another 5am start on Friday.
Friday saw some minor issues for the old Super Sport, but again, nothing Jeremy and Julian couldn’t handle. For one, the car was experiencing some fuel starvation due to the heat. However, they overcame this by simply rolling down the hills – in fact, they predict that one of the hill rolls spanned 11 miles before they turned on the engine! Another issue was that the pair got a little off track somewhere around Col d’Esischie. After asking a local farmer for directions, Julian and Jeremy were sent off down a long and dusty road. The only problem was that they were met at the other end by a lone shepherd who sent the pair back the way they came! Following this, they stumbled across some stragglers who were having car troubles, so dedicated some time to helping out their fellow petrol-heads before heading back to Valloire.
Now, it’s worth mentioning at this point that there were a few skeptics who thought the old Super Sports wouldn’t finish day one of the trial, let alone the entire week! This is because, if you remember, there were some significant problems with the piston rings the day before the trial commenced. However, unsurprisingly to us, the hand crafted pistons that Jeremy created held up to the steep, winding roads allowing him and Julian to complete the trial – albeit in last place, but to a very well deserved standing ovation.
