by Rob Marriott

Jeff has been looking for new sites for a long time and recently he came across the site at Matchams near Ringwood.  He booked it for a club play day and as it is on my doorstep I could not wait to try it out and see if it was any good.  Rich, Jem and I volunteered to marshal at the event so we agreed to meet at mine for a cuppa before the day began and then head down in convoy.  The boys arrived bright and early, (OK hung-over and shaking!), once I had thrown my kit in the back of the truck and topped up on caffeine we headed down to the site.

The site is on the same site as Matcham’s Market and the Ringwood Raceway Banger and Stock car track, so it is like a second home to Rich who has raced bangers there for years.  When we arrived there was a number of members already there and Jeff was setting up.  We had the luxury of a wooden hut to set up as a signing in point and the burger van was already fired up.  As soon as some of the other marshals were on site Jeff called a meeting and explained that the market had been cancelled for the day so we had the site pretty much to ourselves.  The site is split into two halves and the plan was to open the first half in the morning (excluding the ski slope on which the owner has a clay pigeon shoot running) and then open the ski slope and other half of the site in the afternoon.  After the meeting Rich and Jem headed out in different directions and I hung around the car park to help with signing in.

Once the car park quietened and members had headed out onto the site I followed.  The first part of the site was an old motor cross track with other tracks leading in and out of this.  This offered some interesting routes and places to play.  One of which was an interesting track down through a wooded section.  This took some careful negotiating going down and (as Ben Sheppard learned the hard way!) even more coming up.

I met up with Rich and a couple of other friends and we tried out a couple of the tracks on this end of the site.

After a while of playing on these dry tracks we headed down to the bottom of the course where there was a very wet track.  I spoke to Rich and he said it looked easy so I fired on in.  I went about 10 yards and ended up with two wheels off the ground and much jeering.  I was very kindly pulled out backwards and took another attempt but this time with much more ‘Commitment’.  This time I fired through to very nearly the end but I backed off the throttle at the wrong time and ended up stuck again!  Luckily Lenny was on hand in his mis-firing V8 lightweight and he pulled me out.

Then to add insult to injury he then turned around cruised through the section that had just caused me so much trouble on idle with little or no hassle.  While not concentrating I drove straight into another hole without enough momentum to see me though and promptly had to ask Len to pull me out again!  How embarrassing!  On the way back to the burger van to try to restore what little pride I had with a cup of coffee, I noticed that my oil pressure was dropping down to almost nothing on idle.  I stopped for a burger and coffee and mentioned this to Jeff who recommended giving the oil pump cover a tap with a hammer as sometimes the pressure relief valve in this sticks open.  I took his advice and the oil pressure returned to normal although I had to repeat the process a number of times during the day.  That’s a pint I owe Mister Harris! 

After spending a while at the car park booking members in and chatting to those having lunch I headed out to the other side of the site.  This side has a great chalk mound that makes for a great playing.  There were a number of members here having a go at the various climbs and descents it offered.

 I think the highlight of this was watching Bodders in his bobtailed Range Rover drive down this and then putting it into reverse and slowly, with all four wheels spinning, reversed back up to the top.  I then took a wander over to the Ski slope to watch the Zil (Ex-Russian Army Truck) and Lenny try it out.

 This was rather tame in the dry conditions and they made short work of it.  Back in the car park some of the members were treating the rest of us to an example of extreme articulation using the back of the Zil as a demonstration platform

 After this I picked up Rich as a passenger and headed out to the chalk mound.  I tried to make him scream or at least bounce out of his seat by letting the landie rip over the uneven terrain and climbing up and down the mound.  After failing to raise more than a eyebrow from him I headed out into the bottom section which I had yet to explore (but I understand Jackie had already made a bottom shaped impression on!).

 When we got there we found Andy stuck in the middle of it in his Range Rover.  I navigated a route around to him and pulled him out.  He was determined not to be beaten by this patch of ground so I offered to take it in turns pulling him out if he would do the same for me.  We had a number of goes at this but in the end had to concede defeat as neither of us could make it all of the way through.

Andy headed back to the car park but Rich and I decided to explore a bit further.  I had pulled Steve out earlier and decided to try the section back the way he had come.  We got quite far through this but then ended up high and dry again.  As no one else was about we hauled out the trusty winch and connected up to a handy tree.

 The winch managed to haul me out onto terra firma but then gave up the ghost.  Something I need to take the spanners to again I think!  Discretion being the better part of valour we took the gentle route back to the paintball huts, washed the worst out of the radiator and then headed back to the car park. 

When we got back to the car park most members had headed home so after wrapping up everything we needed to do, Rich, Mark and I headed down to a local pub for a pint and a chin wag to finish off the day. 

The general opinion about the site was that it was great to have a new site and it was a very enjoyable.  The site is quite small compared to some of the other we use.  It will be much more of a challenge in the wet.  It is an ideal occasional site and it is great to add it to the variety of sites we visit.

Rob

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