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Drive to evaluate Spooner's lily pad? (4,4)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

road test

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'lily pad?' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I cannot see how they can define each other.

'drive to evaluate spooner's' is the wordplay.
'drive' becomes 'test' (testing drive is a kind of driving).
'to' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'evaluate spooner' becomes 'road' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'test' after 'road' is 'ROAD TEST'.

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for road test that I've seen before include "As check of transport" , "check car" , "Vehicle trial" , "Try out how something works under realistic conditions" , "preliminary trial" .)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.
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