Seaside towns come to life early each morning but in Llandudno in the first week of June the joggers and strollers on the promenade were competing with the team setting up the scrutineering bays in readiness for the twenty first Three Castles Trial.  The first cars arrived for inspection at eight o clock, the earliest arrivals those competing in the concours.  Arrivals continued on schedule for the rest of the morning, each car assigned a time to be tested, which avoids a long queue forming on the approach.  The sun was shining once the early morning cloud lifted, the Great Orme benevolently shielding the promenade from the strongest Westerly winds, leaving only a blustery breeze to keep temperatures down.

The concours competition, sponsored by the Imperial Hotel, is the next item on the agenda.  Entry is optional but with all the competing cars being parked on the promenade, those entered in the concours are grouped together so the judges, including Lord Mostyn whose family originally founded and built Llandudno, can browse the display of differing age and make to arrive at their conclusion.  The line up makes for some interesting contrasts - an immaculate 1972 Hillman Imp flanked by a 1956 Ford Thunderbird and an Aston Martin DB4 from the sixties, both fully restored, their paintwork sparkling in the sunshine. The award is presented at the welcome dinner at the end of the day.

At two o clock the cars depart on the Prologue, a forty seven mile sample of the real competition to come.   Maps and road books will have received a great deal of attention before the cars line up for their assigned departure times. Whether the drivers and navigators think of it as useful practice, a shake down of car and crew or simply a low pressure start to the serious competition to come, almost all of the cars will take part.  Their departure along the promenade is always a popular spectacle, attracting members of the public, many of them with memories of the cars passing - “It’s like that Bangers and Cash on the telly where you look out for that car your Dad had.” 

One challenge was resolved before the Prologue began. The four step puzzle solved by Ryan Pickering, navigator in car 17, driven by previous event winner Mark Godfrey, identified the process used by the organisers to calculate Prologue start times.  His prize was a bottle of Penderyn Welsh whisky.  The Prologue is only the first competitive step in the five hundred mile journey that makes up the 2025 Three Castles and includes a sample regularity section on public roads as well as a test at Gwyrch Castle, built on the site of an Elizabethan house in the hills above Abergele. Competitors will then return to the promenade in Llandudno and the 2025 Three Castles Trial will be poised to begin in earnest.