Behind the scenes at Towcar of the Year! ('team ballast' gets an extra pair of hands)

This year, I got a chance to go behind the scenes at the judging of The Towcar of the Year. It was really interesting to see the attention to detail that goes into it.

‘Team Ballast’ as they’re affectionately known, needed an extra pair of hands during the judging of this year’s Towcar of the Year competition and I was more than happy to accept the opportunity to help. It was a great experience, and made me wonder whether people realise what goes on behind the scenes to make this big (and important) annual event run like clockwork.

As its name suggests, ‘Team Ballast’ does not have the glamorous job of driving and judging all those (mostly) lovely new cars, but it does have a very important support role getting all the cars (a total of 39 in this year’s competition) ready to be judged, and making sure the caravan in tow is weighted accordingly.

This meant we had to load every car with exactly the same amount of ballast (sandbags - two in the front passenger’s footwell, four across the back seats and six in the boot) to represent a typical weight in the car when towing, rather than just having the judges in the cars on their own. It was like a bootcamp session - with caravans!

Obviously, we put some more sandbags in each caravan as well, so that it was carefully matched to 85 per cent of the car’s kerbweight, or the car’s maximum towing weight (if lower than the 85 per cent weight).

Then, tyre pressures had to be checked, towing mirrors fitted and the caravan’s noseweight measured to make sure it didn’t exceed the car’s recommended limit. Afterwards, when each car was finished with, the sandbags and towing mirrors had to be removed and caravan unhitched and load checked again, ready for its next tug. The caravans were never stationary for very long.

That kept us busy, and although it was probably the least glamorous job at the event, thankfully the sun shone and I got to work with a slick team from Bailey (who supplied all the caravans for the event) and AL-KO (who swopped any of its AKS stabilisers fitted to the caravans with regular hitches, and temporarily disabled the ATC function so judges could properly judge any instability) who have both supported and carried out this important role for many years.

We couldn’t have done this without our beloved data sheet provided by The Caravan Club’s competitions support team who had sourced all the key information we needed for each car, and which of the 10 caravans it had been allocated to tow.

The team have run this competition for many years and, as you’d expect, do it with a keen attention to detail. Keeping track of 39 cars, 10 caravans, nine judges, two photographers, plus visitors from the car manufacturers and other industry guests who’d accepted the invitation to see the competition in action, as well as keeping track of all the scoring sheets is a huge logistical challenge, but they seemed to take it all in their stride – and with a smile.

I also enjoyed the chance for a quick look in all those new cars, especially as some were only just launched so I hadn’t seen them before (eg Nissan X-TRAIL and Volkswagen Golf SV). Sadly, there wasn’t the opportunity for me to take them for a test tow myself, but I did get treated to a lap of the test route at the Millbrook Proving Ground by Club Chairman, Grenville Chamberlain, who delighted in showing me the high-speed bowl, the Alpine route, and hill start and emergency braking areas that every outfit was put through.

After all that, it’s no wonder the judges had some favourite cars that coped with this tough test comfortably, and others less so. They also score them on their running costs and practicality for taking a typical load of caravanning stuff, and after two days of judging they get together to discuss and agree on their final decisions on the class winners, plus of course, the overall winner.

The results are a closely guarded secret until the awards ceremony, which is tomorrow, Wednesday 24 September, so not long to wait now…