Vintage Stony is PUB's'season opener1 event, for it is hard to get anything earlier than January 1st (unless one wants to organise a trial starting at midnight). The question was would the weather play ball, especially as it was very wet around that time? The very late answer to that one was yes, and flooded bits of road locally had subsided whilst further rain held off until evening – hooray.
Next question, would the Bollée play ball – for it had failed fairly badly at Banbury in 2023 for reasons unknown? Naturally it had been looked at/serviced since then, but nothing untoward found, so a day or so in advance a further check was made, and the engine started. No problem, but it couldn't be taken for a drive because the garage where it lives was blocked by the owner's car (they were out). So it wasn't until New Year's morning that it got tried for real, when the ‘clutch’, such as it is (a tightening of the belt) was let out. Forward motion commenced with no trouble – another hooray, could things get any better?
But then PUB tried to change gear, which isand this wasn't one of them for she was not in the gear she thought. Amidst grinding noises that the whole town could probably hear the vehicle gradually came to a stop, and stalled. Nor did it restart easily, eventually requiring more air, suggesting it had been overrichened for the restart. As it is a very short distance from the trailer stop to the Market Square a breakdown en-route was impressive, was it not?
