eXternal is back with a second Sausage Competition. The first one was a real joy and a great puzzle so this sequel has a lot to live up to.
Preamble: Single superfluous words in sixteen clues help to identify a type of competition; five competitors (shown as blocks of cells in the grid); and give two instructions to create the final grid, which contains real words after changes.
Many of the clues yielded straight away – maybe a dangerous signal that the endgame will take up half the time – and identifying the superfluous words was often not much of a challenge. (It was only after I’d finished the puzzle that I noticed that they were in every other across clue plus every third down clue.) 
As usual it took a little while to sort out the wordplay for the final handful of answers, so I decided to put off looking at my assortment of superfluous words until the next day – nothing in particular had struck me apart from Mouldy Old Dough by Lieutenant Pigeon.
The next five redundant words gave the competitors: Sunny, Acclaim, Maestro, Panda, Escort, each being a model of car. That left the two instructions: Wreck four manufacturers and Shade untouched winner. The manufacturers of the cars were Nissan, Triumph, Austin, Fiat, Ford, and the blocks of cells weren’t too difficult to pick out as they were more or less symmetrically placed in the grid.
Now we had to “wreck” four of them, leaving real words. Shortest first, scrambling FORD left SERR, PROF & OINKS down, and DADO across; next rearranging FIAT produced TALLET & SWIFTER across, and RAFTS down. It seemed highly unlikely that DIPLOE at 8d could be changed so I decided to leave TRIUMPH alone for now. Shuffling NISSAN revealed BEAN, LENS & SILAGE across, and SEANS down; all of which left AUSTIN to be dealt with … but the S of SATIN at 34a could only be changed to D, L, M or P (according to Chambers) and none of those are in AUSTIN. Hmm, and a bit of head-scratching. It had to be TATIN, which I recalled is a sort of upside-down apple tart (named for the two sisters, Stéphanie and Caroline Tatin who ran the hotel of that name), and that meant that the other changes gave ABACI & UNSTACK across, and CANT down. And so TRIUMPH did indeed triumph.
The relevance of Mouldy Old Dough by Lieutenant Pigeon eluded me for some time until I finally stumbled upon the fact that it has been adopted as the theme tune for Banger Racing, hence Sausage Competition – “Doh!”. Thanks go to eXternal. Good fun, but probably not PotY this time around.
| No. | Clue | X | Answer | Wordplay |
| Across | ||||
| 1 | Socially excluded one wearing sad [mouldy] corset awkwardly (10) | mouldy | OSTRACISED | I (one) in [SAD CORSET]* |
| 9 | Insect took place beside core of apple (4) | WASP | WAS (took place) (ap)P(le) | |
| 14 | Boned [old] fish and complete supply gets skinned (6) | old | FILLET | FILL (complete) (g)ET(s) |
| 15 | Set off from Troy with worker aboard ship (7) | TRIGGER | T(roy) RIGGER (worker aboard ship) | |
| 16 | Caught one studying hard implement for hitting [dough] (7) | dough | SWATTER | homophone SWOTTER (one studying hard) |
| 17 | Flight over ridge that’s satisfying start for pilot (4) | YUMP | YUM (that’s satisfying) P(ilot) | |
| 18 | Person revered some letters from [lieutenant] rather overtly (4) | lieutenant | HERO | (rat)HER O(vertly) |
| 19 | Workshop owner taking part in artisan talks (5) | SANTA | (arti)SAN TA(lks) | |
| 20 | [Pigeon] bones this writer found around pit (8) | pigeon | MAXILLAE | ME (this writer) around AXILLA (pit) |
| 23 | Afghani, perhaps, ventured out of base (4) | DARD | DARED (ventured) ¬ E (base) | |
| 26 | Ed’s behind piece of [sunny] ground beside river (5) | sunny | AREAR | AREA (piece of ground) R(iver) |
| 27 | Brahms and Liszt finally compose canto together (6, 2 words) | AT ONCE | [(compos)E CANTO]* | |
| 32 | [Acclaim] source of oil well in France with space to shift west (4) | acclaim | BENI | BIEN (well, Fr) with EN (space) moved left |
| 33 | Plantain from Zambia a chap cut regularly (5) | ABACA | (Z)A(m)B(i)A (a) C(h)A(p) | |
| 34 | [Maestro] posed wearing lustrous fabric (5) | maestro | SATIN | SAT (posed) IN (wearing) |
| 35 | Minor and severe reproofs shaking lad (4) | LESS | LESSONS (severe reproofs) ¬ SON (lad) | |
| 36 | Pin back of target in offensive, striking at [panda] (7) | panda | TINTACK | (targe)T IN ATTACK (offensive) ¬ AT |
| 37 | Anonymous new learner to get on organ at early stage (6) | ANLAGE | A(nonymous) N(ew) L(earner) AGE (get on) | |
| 38 | [Escort] barking setter on special routes (7) | escort | STREETS | [SETTER]* S(pecial) |
| Down | ||||
| 2 | Retinues of Indian troopers to scatter then meet up after arrival (9) | SOWARREES | SOW (scatter) SEE< (meet) after ARR(arr) | |
| 3 | Scores in Glasgow [wreck] luxurious establishment, we’re told (5) | wreck | RITTS | homophone RITZ (luxurious establishment) |
| 4 | Modify discussed rule with trouble, it’s divisive in church (9, 2 words) | ALTAR RAIL | homophone ALTER (modify) R(ule) AIL (trouble) | |
| 5 | Starve, requiring bit of muscle mass (4) | CLEM | (mus)CLE M(ass) | |
| 6 | Pen for [four] pigs by river in lower regions (4) | four | STYX | STY (pen for pigs) X (multiplied into, by) |
| 7 | Small case not opening in suite round the bend (4) | ÉTUI | (s)UITE< | |
| 8 | Tissue left in sink one emptied (6) | DIPLOE | L(eft) in DIP (sink) (o)N(e) | |
| 10 | Crooked local [manufacturers] jointly decide to wipe out third in war (4) | manufacturers | AGEE | AGREE (jointly decide) ¬ (wa)R |
| 11 | Heard ride on water enthralled person (4) | SERF | homophone SURF (ride on water) | |
| 12 | Brief test call to Angus? (4) | PROO | PROO(f) (test) | |
| 13 | Designed a top for shop, blue [shade] is authorised for supply (8) | shade | ISSUABLE | [A S(hop) BLUE IS]* |
| 21 | Removing pedal found in tape and clumsily attached to another kind of organ (6) | ADNATE | [TAPE ¬ P(edal) AND]* | |
| 22 | Partners overwhelmed by main consequences of stimulation (5) | SENSA | NS (North South, bridge partners) in SEA (main) | |
| 24 | Paint oddly missing, worry about [untouched] columns in doorway (5) | untouched | ANTAE | (p)A(i)N(t) EAT< (worry) |
| 25 | Swallows avoiding last of gamekeeper’s shots for game (5) | DINKS | DRINKS (swallows) ¬ (gamekeepe)R | |
| 27 | About to come first, cake contest winners in 1974 (4) | ABBA | BABA (cake) with A(bout) first | |
| 28 | Smack [winner] and beat German (4) | winner | TANG | TAN (beat) G(erman) |
| 29 | Line of smoochers (4) | OCHE | (smo)OCHE(rs) | |
| 30 | Not first time, manage joint in Dundee (4) | CUIT | CUT IT (manage) ¬ first T(time) | |
| 31 | Member of ancient people favoured in auditorium (4) | PICT | homophone PICKED (favoured) | |
Approached this one with much trepidation, having lost my way in the twisty intricacies of Sausage Competition I (theme: Battle of Salamis), but successfully crossed the finishing line. Never heard of “Mouldy Old Dough”, but Google provided the banger-racing link. For the endgame my first thought was that the losers might simply be deleted, but that obviously (in more than one case) didn’t leave real words. Wreckage then proceeded slowly but reasonably surely, pretty much as in the blog.
All thanks to eXternal and HolyGhost!
I vaguely recalled Lieutenant Pigeon as having produced a hit single in the 1970s, but only the artist’s name, and was suspecting that the appearance of Mouldy Old Dough simply showed I’d got the superfluous words wrong. But the internet trawl soon produced enlightenment, with all sorts of delightful titbits; the song itself is not really being a song at all, but a sort of repetitive growl of the key phrase, and much of its musical accompaniment was provided by the author’s middle-aged mother on a honky tonk piano. It’s worth a glance at the YouTube video, showing a typical Top of The Pops youthful audience dutifully gyrating to this most bizarre of No 1 hits; it exemplifies the sheer weirdness of the 1970s, which is my defining decade! Not the hardest IQ puzzle, but I enjoyed the demolition derby, including the way that the Triumph triumphed, and is shaded in the vague shape of a car. For once I didn’t need the blog, but it’s nice to have everything confirmed; thanks to eXternal and HG.
I had to make time for this puzzle (starting it only two days ago), but it was a joy to solve – the clues being top-notch as they were in Sausage Comp I and other puzzles by this setter.
I got stuck on the last bit of of the endgame, being unable in the time I had to re-arrange the letters of AUSTIN successfully, although I was already sure of TRIUMPH being triumphant. (And I first had to be sure that ‘wreck’ meant ‘anagram’ and not ‘destroy’.)
Many thanks to eXternal and HG.
Absolute epitome of what an Inquisitor puzzle should be. Great clues, a PDM and a lovely endgame about a subject of absolutely no consequence whatsoever…
Superb
What Bingy@4 said! Even the grid layout was adapted to make it look more like a racing circuit.
All rather delightful, even if it took me a while to realise that the ‘winner’ was just the one that couldn’t be wrecked, rather than a reference to some famous historical banger race.
Thank you all.
My journey was pretty similar to HG’s. I found the grid fill rather easier than I expected from eXternal. It was only the SE quadrant that needed a bit more thought. The three messages were quite clear and, yes, Triumph was the one which would not wreck satisfactorily and was also an appropriate name for the winner.
So, a fully completed puzzle but, only a vague idea what the title meant, except sausage = banger = old car.
I had not come across the term “Banger Racing”, but, in my distant youth, I used to enjoy visiting Brand’s Hatch to watch the Saloon Cars racing.
Thanks to eXternal for an ingeneous and enjoyable puzzle and to HG, especially for explaining the punch line.
To be honest I was hoping the winner would somehow turn out to be Sean Bean (SW quadrant), but it’s an excellent puzzle either way.
Like arnold@5, I was looking for some legendary four-car crash in a historical race, but when search engines were unenthused by that line of enquiry, I rethought things. I can only agree with all the praise; thanks to eXternal and HG.
As an avid watcher of Top of the Pops in the 70s, Lieutenant Pigeon and their classic Mouldy Old Dough leapt out at me fairly early on in the piece. Why it became the anthem for banger racing is anyone’s guess, but there it was in Google. As a big fan of public transport I enjoyed wrecking the cars – I suppose if I had to spare one it would be a Triumph. Thanks to eXternal for an entertaining challenge and Holy G for the blog. 10/10 this week – not my Wurst performance.