As featured in NZ Classic Car Magazine, 14 June 2015.

 

"The first-ever classic race meeting was held at the newly opened Hampton Downs circuit on November 28, 2009, the first race at this meeting being a Classic Trial. But that was by no means the start of trialling in New Zealand. For that you need to go back to the glory days of the Thoroughbred and Classic Car Owners Club (TACCOC) Wings & Wheels meetings at which, once a year, fields of up to 40 substantially standard road-going classic cars ran in Regularity Trials around a runway circuit at RNZAF Whenuapai.

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Of course Regularity Trials had their origins in the UK, where they were popular during the ’50s. Local TACCOC members, having seen these types of event being run in Australia, brought Regularity Trials to New Zealand. TACCOC wrote the rules for the event and convinced MotorSport New Zealand to add trialling into its race regulations. At the time, the late Geoff Manning was president of TACCOC, and today the Classic Trial Championship celebrates Geoff, with entrants competing for a trophy named in his memory and presented by his wife, Barbara Manning.

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Sadly, with Whenuapai no longer available for motor sport, the Wings & Wheels meeting disappeared from the calendar and, although Regularity Trials continued, support for the event dropped off.

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However a couple of habitual trial competitors, Arthur Hopkins and Rex Oddy, determined that it was time to rev up the class. They formed a register of competitors, and worked with the promoters of the major classic meetings in the top half of the North Island to run trials under the new name of Classic Trials. This all took place in in late 2002, with the first Classic Trial held at a Historic Racing Club meeting at Manfeild in 2003.

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It was the start of the current Classic Trial Championship, and it has continued in the same format ever since."