1983

IMLEC was back at Guildford for 1983 and it was a warm one with temperatures in the eighties. Guildford had their own dynamometer car for this year's competition, constructed by Ed Pitkethly. Chief Judge was Alan Jensen. Out of 28 runs, 16 could not make it "up the bank" on the first or second lap, proving what a challenge track Guildford was and still is!

It was a debut win for Les Pritchard with his Rebuilt Royal Scot, Laurie Lawrence gives us the details:

"Les Pritchard's 5 in. gauge L.M.S. "Rebuilt Scot" 4-6-0 is a good looking well made locomotive which gained a Silver Medal in the 1982 Model Engineer Exhibition. It is generally to Martin Evan's design but the only castings used are for the wheels; "cut from solid" and fabrication are the features of construction. Load was driver, observer and eight passengers. Some amusement was created at the start the starting judge's whistle wouldn't whistle!, so we had a false start but when the regulator was "officially" opened, the Rebuilt Scot got away with only a little well controlled slip and was soon going well. Firing was little and often at about the same intervals round the track; there was some leak from the cylinder drains but not much loss from the safety valves; speed was well up, generally around 8 mph with occasional spells above this. Later in the run Les was obviously having some injector trouble and the quality of performance varied then. However, the troubles were evidently of minor nature and he was to hold the first place for the remainder of the afternoon and all the following day in spite of some determined competition in store!"