London to Lisbon

2007 HERO London Lisbon Classic Reliability Trial & Tour

It is with a great deal of sadness and disappointment that we have to announce the cancellation of the 2007 London Lisbon Classic Reliability Trial & Tour. Three weeks before the event we received a detailed letter from the Ministry of the Interior in Spain. The letter was in Spanish (not a major problem as we employ the services of a first class interpreter) and detailed a number of things that were required by the Ministry before authorisation could be granted. One of these was the payment of a special licence fee in person at an office in Spain within ten days (only six of these days being working days). This letter caused great concern because first of all nothing like this had happened before (this is our fourth London Lisbon and we do not deal direct with the Ministry), and secondly most of what we were being asked for had been supplied to the Spanish ASN (the equivalent of our MSA). Our main contact in the ASN was on holiday and so we spoke to her boss (for those of you who know the MSA, the equivalent of Ian Davis). He was noticeably surprised and gave every assurance that the documents had been sent off. He also confirmed that nothing like this had happened before and gave us the name of a direct contact in the Ministry. Duplicates were sent and we tried several times to make direct contact with the Ministry. Neither our interpreter nor Peter were able to make progress.

On Monday 10^th September Peter and our interpreter spent the morning on the telephone to Spain trying to determine what was behind what appeared to be a change in policy & procedure. They were told that it was due to personnel who normally dealt with authorisation in both the RFEDA and the Ministry being on holiday; that afternoon we were asked to resubmit the time schedule.

On Tuesday morning (11^th September), we received both email and telephone messages asking that a copy of HERO’s standard regulations be sent immediately and directly to the Spanish Authorities, despite the fact that this document (translated into Spanish) was already in the possession of the RFEDA. Later that day we received yet another urgent message asking for further information which had already been supplied, and a request for further additional fees. The information was sent together with a request for an explanation as to what the fees covered.

On Wednesday morning (12^th September) we received yet another request for a document to be resent (but no details of the additional fees). Mindful of the distance that crews have to travel and the arrangements that have to be made, we requested that we be informed by the end of Wednesday as to when the authorisation would be issued. No response to our request was forthcoming from either the RFEDA or the Ministry of the Interior. We were forced to conclude that the necessary authorisation was unlikely to be granted and bearing in mind that, as with many countries, Spain considers the running of an illegal event an offence for which the Clerk of the Course is personally liable to arrest and prosecution, we have reached the reluctant conclusion that the event must be cancelled.