At 10 o'clock on a beautifully warm and sunny Sunday morning, a mixture of Southern Car Club members, friends from Croydon & District Motor Club, family members and personal friends assembled at the Reigate Manor Hotel. Tea, coffee and biscuits had been laid on, with the hotel's compliments, for the inaugural running of the above event, held in memory of Suzy's college friend, Lara.

After a leisurely chat over the said refreshments, the six intrepid teams set out on a voyage of discovery….. well, looking for the answer to question 1 at any rate! After hanging on for an extra 15 minutes in case of latecomers, Suzy and I set out “in hot pursuit”, only to discover copious quantities of diversion signs had appeared from nowhere! The ensuing panic quickly disappeared as we realised that they didn't quite interfere with the route. Phew!

The route took the participants away from the town centre to the first questions on Reigate Heath, before heading through Leigh village and Bunce Common and on to the location for tiebreak 1. This was the “vicious” humpback bridge over Tanner's Brook, just south of Brockham, which had to be identified from a colour photocopy of yours truly competing on my first road rally in 1984.

From there, we headed south to Holmwood Common and an information board with details of the area's history which gave us ample opportunity for questions about activities involving sheep! We decided to park up here for a while to wait for some of the participants to catch up.

The worry with running this type of event is pitching the questions at the right level of difficulty – too obscure and everyone soon gets fed up; too easy and you lose the sense of challenge and competition. So it was with some trepidation that we awaited the arrival of our first “victims”! The general impression was that they had found most of the answers but a couple had left them scratching their heads. Reassured that we seemed to have got the balance about right, we set off again leapfrogging several crews en route to Leith Hill, the location of the second tiebreak. Another copy of a photograph depicting a roadrallying SAAB 96 V4, this time hand-braking a hairpin junction in the rain at night, was the only clue the competitors had to identify the junction.

The narrow lanes from here to Friday Street were deliberately left devoid of clues to enable everyone to enjoy the scenery, the drivers to enjoy the “interesting” roads and the passenger(s) the chance to take a break from reading and writing on the move!

A variety of clues dotted around Abinger Common and Holmbury St. Mary followed, before the crews were instructed to park their cars and take a short stroll to the viewpoint at the top of Holmbury Hill. The previous weekend's clear skies had afforded views as far as the Coast but the warmer weather's hazy skies cut the visibility to only about 12 miles. The view was still well worth the climb and the exercise certainly helped to work up an appetite for the Sunday lunch, which followed the few remaining clues, at the pub in Ewhurst village.

After several hours searching the Surrey countryside for a fair number of clues, the result was incredibly close but didn't require the use of the tiebreaks (which involved more luck than judgement) and are as follows out of a possible 92 points:

1st: Dave and Allison Walters: 91
2nd: Phil Sullivan, Lynne and Fiona Davison: 89
3rd: Dave Wild with Antonia, Liam, Diane & Suzanne: 88
4th: Louise Harris and Janet Sanger: 86
5th: Anita Palmer and Ian Pinnock: 81
6th: Michelle Hobbs and Roger Summers: 73