Skoda Rally Blog

OK, first up this will be brief – today has been a VERY long day and with a not-too-great outcome, so it is late, and I am very tired and not in the best frame of mind – so apologies for this, it’ll be more “bullet points” than long text – I will come back and flesh it out later on, honest!

So, with that in mind:

We set out about the same time, got the car out of Parc Ferme and all was well – got to service and loaded up for the day, and set off on the long road section to the first stage, Radnor 1.  This was the first stage we recce’d, and seems a LONG time ago now.  The road section was pretty easy on time, so we got near the stage entry and parked up with some other cars, and had a break, watching others come through.  One notable thing was one rally car reversing into another one when he missed his junction, and didn’t even stop to apologise or anything!

These were NOT the cars that ran into each other!

The stage itself went really well – the car was running well, although it wasn’t happy on part throttle (misfiring) it was revving out OK, and the stage was good as it was bright and sunny, with LOTS of spectators about, and the condition of the stage was good.  I got into a good rhythm pretty much straight away, and I felt it went really well all over, aside from the very end of the stage, which was really muddy, and I ended up totally off the line in the field instead of on the track, but I don’t think I was alone in that from the tracks I saw.

The road section to the next stage, Monument Hill 1 was fairly long, during which Paul came up with a theory that there aren’t actually many sheep in Wales, most of them are plastic dummies as they never move.  He also renamed one of the towns we went through as “Pillow”.  We had a bit of time spare when we got there too, and again watched the big boys pass us by, before going into the stage – here we are on the stage start:

Monument Hill - thanks for the pic, Simon!

Again this went well, with the car running OK, and the downhill sections getting it pretty much flat in top gear; gripping stuff aside from the shadows we went into making it hard to see where corners started.  But again, it went well, and we had a few “moments”, but nothing serious; it just felt like I was getting something like the most out of the car.

Next up was Four Ways Crychan – here we are on the start line again:

Crychan start - thanks again Simon!

This stage had worried me before, being half tarmac and then the classic forest stage (one I really like), but I needn’t have worried too much; yes, the tarmac was really slippy where it had mud dragged onto it, but for the most part it was pretty much as you’d expect, despite being on gravel tyres and suspension.

SS10 pic by Rob Lees

It was certainly LONG though, and then we were into the gravel section, which I loved; I was really getting confident and happy to keep the speed up on the longer sections with 1 and 2 corners, some of which were pretty slippy, but the car went where it should do, once you told it to!

SS10 pic courtesy of Andy Wort

We got caught by the Swift (2 cars behind us) towards the end, but it worked out OK for both of us, and again I felt I’d done a good job; most of the corners had been taken at decent speed and again lines round slower stuff were improving as was the speed.

Finally in the loop was Halfway, one of my favourite stages which has a great forestry section to start, and then open army range roads to finish; while the car could definitely do with more power for them, it was great, most of the time the speed was kept up, and sections which I’d had problems with before went well; the middle bit with some difficult corners and rally-finishing rocks nearby was taken with some caution but still with a reasonable bit of speed.  Again, I thought I’d done a decent job and so did Paul.

The weather was good, the stages were going well, and for the most part the car was too.  The only issue really was a part-throttle misfire which came and went; sometimes it would be OK, other times it would be quite bad.

Lunchtime service was at Builth Wells again, and we got a good spot, having arrived nice and early allowing consumption of a fine hot dog while waiting to book in, and comparing stories with Nick West in the Fiesta while we were in the regroup.  Service went without any real issues, and we were back out again soon enough.

The re-run stages were much rougher than usual as the National B rally had also run over them, leading Radnor to be a bit cut up and very slippy at the very end; it wasn’t as bad as we’d been told, but certainly in a few places it was hard work and hard on the car, although it seemed OK about it!

Monument Hill 2 was also fairly cut up in places, although the change of sun meant that some of it could be taken quicker and with more confidence than before; a bit of cloud meant that there wasn’t the bright sun/shade leading to a bit more confidence from me, and some good fun had while out there.

Crychan 2 was quite testing; as soon as we started there was a nasty “knock” whenever on/off the throttle, which I thought was a gearbox mounting, and in addition I thought the gearbox had broken, but this was from someone else’s smell in places! (Not Paul, I hasten to add).  Got some of the corners really good though, and although we got caught by Nick towards the end of the forest section, I still think it went well; its quite difficult doing the tarmac section in the dark as a lot of your information comes from peripheral vision, etc., but I still enjoyed it.

And then Halfway 2.  Again, this was in the dark; before we went in I just checked that the gearbox wasn’t broken (it wasn’t, so I think it was just a mounting having given up), and then in we went.  I think this went really well; I decided that I needed to properly commit to the notes as they had all been good and trustworthy beforehand, and the end result was a run which felt good, and was confirmed by the time we got – the marshal at the end said we’d done really well!

Then it was time to head to Cardiff, and a long, long road section.  And here things started to go wrong; the part throttle issue became an issue in all situations at one point; about 60k out I had real problems keeping the engine going at all, but then it suddenly seemed to sort itself out, firing up OK and running perfectly again.  But with about 10k to go, it died again on the A4232, and I was convinced we wouldn’t make it even off the road; at one point we were doing about 20mph with no power from the engine, and only a lot of frantic effort got us to a petrol station.  I checked everything over while Paul got some WD-40 and we cleaned up all the connections we could, and I checked that the throttle body pot was working (as I thought this may be the problem) – it was OK.  Went to start the car up, and it ran perfectly – no problem at all.  We got to the stage arrival without incident and then booked in, and waited for the stage which was about 40 minutes as the normal 1 minute gaps became 2 for this stage.

Waiting in the dark for Cardiff 2

Eventually we took to the stage, and were off; the start went much better than Thursday (due to having decent fuel in the car), and so did the chicane – partly due to commitment and partly because someone had already taken a fair chunk out of it.  We had decided to give it a bit more of an effort over the jump as we’d be flatter, and we did this – not crazily fast, but with a bit of speed.

BIG mistake.

Now, I don’t think we went quickly over it, but when we landed the back of the car bounced really high into the air, and although I controlled it (or Newton’s laws did, more like), it was quickly apparent that something was wrong – VERY wrong.  The back of the car had no grip, and was just bouncing up and down; Paul kept calling the notes, but I said that a) something was wrong and b) I was an idiot for not taking it easy; I really don’t think we went mad over it, but it had broken something really badly.

In the cardiff stage, bouncing about...

We bounced through the rest of the stage and then got to the car wash near the service check in, and I got out to have a look (while a Japanese lady took pictures of the car).  It was soon obvious what had happened – one of the hoses on the rear suspension (which hold all the oil and pressure of the damping) had broken – it had just burst!  I’m not sure what happened, but the right-side one had come loose – I didn’t think that anything could foul them (and there’s no other way to fit them), so I guess I’ll have to analyse that further later on….

Broken Proflex....

I was devastated.  Game over.  Or was it?  Hopefully not; a plan was hatched to rob the rear shocks from the recce car, and carry on with that setup – it had done 4 recces of Rally GB, so why not?  The boys soon had them off of the recce car, and it reminded me of when C3PO offers his parts to fix R2D2…

Donor car!

We checked out of the ‘dead zone’ and into service, and amazingly we got the rears done, tankguard reattached, horn fixed, a few other bits and pieces and check-tightened the gearbox mountings again (the bush has failed, so nothing we can do really).  And Al was still bolting the sumpguard up as we went to leave, but the misfire returned – the car would barely move, and this was what I’d wanted to fix while in the service before the rears died.

We tried to drive to Parc Ferme but it was so slow I thought it would be better to book in late rather than have a car that won’t run tomorrow.  We spent a frantic 20 minutes trying to find out what was wrong (and found nothing we could see – fuel pressure OK, plugs OK, all connections OK, ECU happy with everything), but changed the plugs anyway, it seemed OK-ish on the road (but clearly randomly rather than actually fixed) and booked into Parc Ferme for the night.

Saturday Parc Ferme...

Went back to service, packed away in the rain, came back here, felt deflated.

So, I have no idea if the car will even start, let alone move tomorrow.  I’m gutted; it was all going so well, and I was really wanting to give the Felicia a good send-off, but it looks destined not to happen.  We are out at 07:18, and will see how it goes; if the car runs like it did earlier today then everything will be fine, but we really don’t know what’s wrong, and dont have much time to find out; we are going to take as many spares as we can and then take it from there.  Wish us luck, we will need it.

Today was the day of the first stages proper of the event, the most northerly of the lot, with Hafren, Sweet Lamb and Myherin, all run twice with a remote service at Builth Wells.  Our start time was 07:14, so we started the day with a great breakfast made by Al, and left the house about 6:30 to be down in service in time to pick the car up.

The rules of Parc Ferme mean we can get access to the car 10 minutes before our ‘due’ time at the control to get it started up, but given how the car wasn’t particularly happy last night I thought it would be best to leave it until we would be able to drive it straight out, which worked well – out of the car park fairly easily, and then we had 10 minutes for the morning service, which for us really just consists of checking the car over a bit, and loading up for the day – the time soon flew by and then we were due at the service out control – firstly to get a time but also to get out tyres/wheels marked, which involved a bit of trouble for Paul as he had to get out and remove the second spare so both could be marked.  Then we were off on the three hour plus road section up to the first stage of the day, Hafren 1, and it immediately became apparent that there was a problem – as soon as we were out on the dual carriageway, the car was missing and bucking around, with the engine cutting out seemingly randomly; by the time we were on the A470 it was running really badly, and seemed to just change from running OK to running really badly – it seemed better on full throttle but still didn’t run right.  When we got most of the way to the stage we filled the half-empty tank with fuel from another well known vendor (instead of the stuff that I put in yesterday which I will not mention, but it’s clear I’m not in a Ford!), and it seemed to help a bit, but the problem was still there.  There was a fair bit of time spare in the timing, so we stopped off at a village (which was already littered with rally cars) and went into a cafe (whose clientele was quadrupled by the presence of several rally crews including Tom Cave).  After a super-healthy sandwich of Bacon, it was time to go up to the stage, which we did, parking up a bit short of the control to get all set up with our HANS devices – this would be the first gravel stage I’ve done with a HANS on and I was a bit worried about it, but soon got strapped in OK, although Paul took a bit longer – typically it started to rain at this point!

Fun with HANS in the rain!

We headed into the stage, with the start crew pleased to see us (having helped us out on recce) and see us leave too!

Once we got into the stage it was immediately apparent that the car wasn’t running at all well – there just seemed to be no power at all compared to how it was running last week; it just wouldn’t rev out, and was really, REALLY slow.  But knowing Paul for as long as I have has rubbed off on me in some ways as we just said that this was how it is, so there’s no point complaining about it, we should just get on with it, so we did!  Aside from the lack of power and the consequent revving of the car in 2nd and 3rd gear all over the place (it would only pull 4th downhill, and 5th was unheard of!), the stage went well – corners were going well, and I was improving my lines round hairpins (which was even more important given the lack of speed), and we got to the end of the stage feeling like we’d done the best we could given what had happened.

Getting to Sweet Lamb wasn’t easy as the link road is crazy – really steep in one place, and like an off-road course, but we managed it after quite a lot of revving, and quite a lot of clutch slip.  But we got there OK, and with time to spare, so we got ready and then we were in.  Now, Sweet Lamb is loved by many, but on the two occasions I’ve driven it, it has been cut up something rotten, and half of it has just been a case of getting round without getting stuck on the sumpguard, but this time was a bit better – the hairpins were still really difficult to take at any speed, but the rest was looking OK, and we had a bit of a bash at the three jumps in a row, and the end result was that I can clearly tell the Proflex suspension is a world away from the Bilstein stuff we had on the car before.

Stage 3, Sweet Lamb - Rob Lees

There were a couple of cars stuck in the stage (I think a swift had had a drink from the river), but we got to the end OK, had a quick chat with WRC radio (bemoaning the lack of power), and then off to Hafren.  The out of Sweet Lamb was originally a stage, I believe, and it certainly looks like it, so it’s a fairly energetic drive, then some very smooth tarmac road round to the start of Myherin, a stage I was really looking forward to – firstly because we’d only really done a very limited part of it in 2008, and secondly because it’s a really good, long varied stage and I wanted to give it a good bash despite the lack of power!

The start didn’t go well – I don’t want to burn the clutch out, so it means once the car bogs down (which it does below 2500rpm), then it’ll be a slow process to get it going – this is about 12mph in first gear, but above that everything was fine.  We didn’t do it again on the rest of the stage, so that’s a bonus (and an incentive to keep going).  While the uphills were difficult again, some of the downhill stuff was great – I really felt I was getting more out of the car (again I think the better suspension helps here as the car just feels more stable at speed), and there’s a section at the top of Myherin where there’s a 5 left over a concrete base which then goes down into a couple of straights with a 2 left in the middle, and then through some posts into another 5 left, and in the past I’d be a bit cautious about the posts, but got it just right, and used the uphill sections to scrub speed off.  Later on there was a downhill into a hairpin left that I overshot – the brakes just didn’t work when I pressed them and we were lucky that it wasn’t somewhere nasty.  They worked fine after this, although there were a couple of other places that they didn’t work properly, so that went on the list of things to fix.  The last section of Myherin is quite fast and flowing, and again I tried to keep the speed up, trust the notes and commit to cornering at more speed.  Although I’m sure the times don’t reveal that, I think it’s probably the best I’ve driven ever; Paul seemed happy with it, and on the few times when we got close to spinning, he would say something like “you don’t want any more speed than that” or something similar.  And he was right!  Most of the time the back of the car was just moving about enough, and could be taken advantage of.  I also did a bit of left foot braking which really helped in some of the tighter corners, and did so after a lot of practice which finally seems to have paid off!

So, with those three finally done, something hit me.  All this week I have been somewhat nervy and worried, and at times like that I think “why the HELL am I doing this?” – it’s taken a year of saving up, and about six months of work, and I had been wondering what on earth I was doing. Until we got going.  No, it wasn’t perfect, but it was still an amazing feeling to drive through the forests, and come out of a classic stage knowing that you’d given it a go.  As I’ve already said, I’m sure the times don’t reflect that, with us already about four weeks slower than the front runners, but that’s not the only thing that it’s about, it’s the feeling of doing it, and that’s why I’ve neeeded to do this for one last time.

With those three complete, it was time to go to remote service in Builth Wells.  When we got near, we realised the car had a new noise, a sort of squealing which sounded like the front brakes or similar, as well as a suspension rattle which had reared its head during Sweet Lamb (actually on the mega-rough link road).  We stopped for fuel, and I had a quick look to see what the noise was – it wasn’t apparent, but nothing seemed too bad, so we went off to service, and had a number of people asking about us, and even an interview!  We got into service, and found that we’d been allocated Bay 1, which was the one that had just been vacated by Mr Loeb!  Ian and Al had come up trumps again, with everything laid out and ready to go.  We told them what was needed (mostly just to check out the rattle, which turned out to be a loose bolt, and also the squeal, which turned out to be the sensor for the terratrip, so I wasn’t worried about it as the brake disc will win that battle eventually).  I was then interviewed for BBC Wales TV, which was quite surreal – in between the panic of trying to fix the car – albeit with little wrong aside from the fuel which we could do nothing more about – talking to people about what we’d been up to and trying to be coherent was just plain odd, but a good experience.

The afternoon loop was a repeat of the stages we’d already done; it was interesting to see how the stages had changed; it started raining which made them a bit more slippy, but they had changed in different ways – Hafren was really tough, as it had cut up quite badly and was rocky and slippy at the same time!  We were much slower this time, but Paul said I shouldn’t be unhappy with it as I’d driven well anyway, and I wasn’t too unhappy really.  Getting round to Sweet Lamb was hard again, and the car got really steamed up.

Sweet Lamb, SS6 - Rob Lees

Paul’s electric window switch had packed up so he needed to open the door to give the time card over, and it also made it difficult to get the car de-steamed… which became a problem shortly into the stage when we went over some water, and it got into the car; the last half of the stage was driven with very little visibility, but I managed to avoid anything too hard, just nerfed a couple of banks.

Myherin 2 was also pretty tricky – it was almost completely in fog throughout, and the screen was never fully clear either; the seal around the gear lever was broken, so every time we went over water, a little plume of steam rose into the car, and hit the windscreen, so there were a few more “moments” than I would have liked, and also probably a fair few too many hesitations, but I still felt I drove well – the car was humming along given enough of a downhill to get going, and 1 and 2 corners were being taken with a fair turn of speed.  Good stuff, and again I was thinking “this is why I do this!” during it, in between trying to clear the screen, drive and so on!

So, the stages of Day 1 were done!  However, there was the case of the 3 hour road section, which was made challenging by some bad traffic delays (about 20 minutes stuck on a road, near-stationary) and a rather circuitous route (which takes us to the remote refuel zone, despite not needing to go there) – we arrived with a few minutes to spare, although there was some good news – a third refill of the tank seems to have improved things, but we will see.

Once we arrived at Cardiff (and had a car wash!), we had a few minutes spare, and spoke to James from Motorsports News, as well as Andrew Kellitt from the MSA, and then booked into service – we had a few things to do, and they all got done fairly easily, made even better by Al and Ian’s fantastic work setting up the service area, with the Gazebo fully up and lit; it was like being a real rally team!  At one point Al was under the car and said “Does this really belong here?”. I was worried, but then he said it was OK really… just a “stick” was wedged in there, apparently split on the front edge of the tank guard;  when he threw it out we laughed as it wasn’t a stick, more a branch really!

Al and the stick!

With everything done, a quick dash back to Parc Ferme, with the car put to bed with all the big boys – As we were there (because of the flexible service times) several front runners arrived, including Raikkonnen and Henning Solberg.  Or more to the point, their cars, driven by their service crew rather than themselves!

Friday night Parc Ferme

So, that’s it – Day 1 is complete.  Not ideal, by any stretch, but if you said to me I’d be 56th after Day 1, with the car in good shape, I’d have taken it.  Tomorrow is looking good, although a bit less so, ‘cos the hot water has packed up again at the house!

So, after a great dinner cooked up by Ian, it was time to go down and get ready for the first stage.  The big advantage of running at the back is that others are before you so everything works smoothly and you can see what’s going on if you have any doubts.  Everything was going as expected, with people going to the pre-start holding area, and then checking in 2 minutes apart, and then off out on the road section to the Cardiff stage.  For this there was one hour seven minutes and it was about 10km or so – I assume because of the ceremony/parade for the front runners, but it meant that the rest of us had a long wait, and this was evidenced by the route being lined with rally cars parked all over the place.  We found one place to park up, and then it started raining so we got in the car and moved it a bit, and eventually parked on a long downhill road on the way to the stage, and then witnessed everyone else coming past warming their tyres/brakes as they went, and after about 45 minutes waiting there we went down the the car park before the arrival control.  The car wasn’t particularly happy about sitting around and not being driven (clearly some errors in my mapping on tickover etc) so I elected to run it as little as possible, and instead we set about getting the HANS and helmets on and in position – not something Paul has had a lot of time to do, but with a bit of messing about we were both strapped in OK, and ready to check in at 9:25pm, which we did, but then saw that there was a delay – apparently a spectator had an epileptic fit leading to a stoppage and delay while and Ambulance attended to them, so eventually we started the stage about 20 minutes later than we should have, and we were away….

Not very well though, I gave it way too many revs and too much clutch slip, but we got going OK, and the jump didn’t go too badly – certainly not well, but didn’t wreck the car either.  The notes could definitely have done with another run (thanks, ISC for that), as there were a couple of distance errors leading to a no-doubt phenomenally slow time.  When we got to the stage stop it was then I had forgotten about the HANS, and getting it off to do the road section and indeed speak to a reported was quite difficult, so I need to work on that, but we got going in reasonable time (albeit not looking like the WRC drivers do in terms of composure), and off to Parc Ferme, where the cars are stored overnight.  We booked in in time, and then we were in a rally fan’s paradise, where all the cars are stored, from Loeb’s, right down to my Skoda.

All tucked up in bed for the night!

Now that's a car park!

Once everything was turned off, set and secured, we left, walking past some phenomenal machinery – I wish I could upload more pics, but it’s late and the phone connection to the ‘net is really slow, so one or two will have to do.  Take my word for it, it’s an amazing thing being there with all those cars – a stupendous amount of money and technology, and all going to be tested tomorrow.  It’s a fairly early start for us tomorrow, so I am off to bed, hopefully to get a decent night’s sleep instead of waking up at 3:30!

Officially, today doesn’t have much to do in it – just stage 1 which is 1.7km of Cardiff Bay – there isn’t a ceremonial start for us mere mortals unlike previous years (which actually I think I’ll really miss – it made you feel a big part of the event, rather than someone who is tagged on the end who won’t get to see much in the way of the front runners), so there wasn’t much to do.

Officially.

There were, however, quite a few things to actually do; OK, not a full day’s schedule, which was handy as I was tired anyway, and even more so after not getting a great night’s sleep, but we went down about midday to get things sorted as the weather looked to be brightening up.  Just as we arrived (Ian and Al were already there), the skies opened, so we went for lunch instead of getting soaked.  We came back a bit later when it had brightened up again, and as soon as we opened the doors on the car, it started raining again, so we sat it out this time, as we had a fair few things to do.  20 minutes or so later saw it dry enough to get started, including adjusting the harnesses for the HANS devices so everything sat properly, sorting out the tyres for the car, the tool bag and spares that we’re carrying, and wiring in power for navigation devices for Paul, plus a few little bits and pieces in the engine bay.

Ian and Al - service crew extraordinare!

This took a couple of hours, but everything was soon set, and then Ian and Al went off to start on dinner, while Paul and I got some fuel, and sorted out the trip meter calibration.

We parked up, and went off to the house, with only two things of note happening:  Firstly I managed to lose the key for the rally car (thankfully I have a spare, but will obviously need to be bloody careful from now on) and secondly I nearly crashed the recce car – the road the house is down is very narrow and windy and I was probably going too fast (about 30) with someone coming the other way.  It took a fair bit of cadence braking, use of the bank and good luck to miss him – we slid to a halt close enough to not be able to see his headlight!  It wouldn’t have been a terrible one, but not a great way to start the event, really.  Thankfully, no harm was done, so I got away with it…

We’ve just had our start times which are 20:18 for TC0 (meaning a stage start time of well after 9pm), and tomorrow at 07:14.

So, here goes…

Recce car, still going strong...

Happy Camper!

Tomorrow there’s not much to do, so hopefully I’ll get a good night’s sleep and then we’ll get this and that done, and be off!

We left at 6:30 as it was about a 2 hour drive to the first stage for us to Recce (Radnor), and we wanted to get there before everyone else starting queueing up.  When we got there (at 8:30), we stopped at the stage arrival, bemused by the lack of anyone else there including marshals.  A couple of cars turned up, and then drove past, and then we realised why, we should have gone to the stage start instead!  There were only 5 cars in front of us, so it wasn’t the end of the world.  A bit after 9am, we got going into the stage.  This year we’re not making notes from scratch, we’re using Patterson’s (as they are available for all the stages we’re doing, aside from Cardiff) and going to add notes where we think it’s appropriate.  As soon as we got going I realised just how rusty I am.  I’ve never claimed to be a great driver, but I felt completely lacking in confidence – there just seemed to be no grip, and I didn’t feel in control at all.  The massive upside was that it’s far easier to modify notes than it is to make them from scratch – within about a mile I said to Paul that they were probably the best £70 we’d spent in a long time, as it can be quite demanding to describe everything you’re doing and seeing, plus having to drive at the same time.  Despite my reservations about my driving skills, we weren’t being caught (which was good), and as the stage went on I felt a bit better; there were some places that were really slippy (including a 5 right which was already noted as slippy which I wanted to go to defcon 1 on), and other places where the grip was really good.  Some of the places where logging has taken place were the worst, as you would expect, but overall it went fairly smoothly.  At the end of the stage (a very muddy little section) I thought it would be a good idea to go round again – not because I thought we needed to add anything else to the notes (most of the changes we made were personal opinion and things such as to ‘hook’ certain places or to emphasise other instructions), and certainly not for Paul’s benefit – he was as ever calm, composed and controlled!
Run two was better – the ‘fear’ seemed to be subsiding a bit, and having seen the stage already meant there was nothing too bad, although one bit where Paul announced “You wouldn’t want to be going off there…”, followed by “because it would be OVER.  Dead!” was really confidence-inspiring!  The slippy section I’d marked before saw us slide off the road (as I was going a fair bit faster this time), and nerf the bank as we did it.  No problem, just a bit of fun.  The run seemed to be over fairly quickly, which was good, and we did make a few little changes as well.  It was really handy having my phone running in the car as I have a speedo on it, which has an alarm you can turn on – the recce has a speed limit of 80kph, and severe fines if you are caught speeding, so I wanted to avoid that.  But what also struck me was the speed we were doing; the recce Felicia isn’t at the peak of good health and therefore is a bit gutless, but once it gets going it keeps up a decent speed, and it was interesting to see corners being taken at 40-45mph when we weren’t really going for it at all.
Next up was the trio of Hafren, Sweet Lamb and Myherin which will make up Friday’s stages, and they were the ones most severely affected by the bad weather in 2008, plus Myherin was where we came across the accident involving the Turkish Fiesta crew (I am pleased to report that they are both OK, although still needing treatment from the accident).  First up was Hafren, and on the way to the stage I noticed a problem with the car – on a couple of right-handers the back let go a bit early; first was when I was trying to keep up with an Evo who was on recce (yes, I know, but I do get carried away sometimes), so I put it down to that, but when we got nearer, there was a much lower-speed corner which had the same effect, so I thought we had a rear puncture.  This was confirmed on arrival by Tom Cave who’d been following us in (thanks Tom), and I was a little worried as we didn’t have a decent spare.  However, my slippy bank antics from earlier in the day had come to haunt us – what had happened was the valve had been filled with mud as it didn’t have a cap on, and was leaking.  I cleaned it out (with some help from the start marshals there, as well as a couple of mouthfuls of drink to try to force the dirt out), and then we pumped it up.  The start marhals conjured up a valve cap for us, and I hoped it’d hold up.  In we went, and again it was a case of some areas were OK, some were slippy – very much so in places in fact.  However, it went pretty well for the most part – a few cases of losing the back of the car, but getting closer to driving properly which was good.  I also noticed that cornering speeds were improving, and taking better lines through hairpins was helping, and made notes to that effect on the… notes!
Sweet Lamb was next, via a very rough link road section (more like an off-road course than rallying), and suddenly we were engulfed in steam. I feared the worsrt, but there was no place to pull over, and it turned out it was just a watersplash combined with our low speed making for a LOT of steam from the exhaust.  The stage itself isn’t a favourite of mine – it just seems to have cut up really badly in places, which is a pity.  The watersplash and jumps are fun though (although again with Paul’s call of “crest and jump… into that bank!” helping a lot).  Another link road and then briefly on the tarmac road itself (where the recce car suddenly seems smooth) and into Myherin.  This went well too, although up top seemed like another planet, with the massive wind turbines and the wind blowing pretty hard.  Plus what also seemed like another planet, we overtook a couple of cars – unheard of!  Overall it went pretty well, and it was interesting remembering the last time we drove on it, when it was very icy (remember that even Loeb got caught out, rolling his recce car on this bit).  The end section is fast and flowing, and a good way to improve my confidence, which was slowly returning, getting the speed better on the 1 and 2 corners (which are fastest in the notes we use).
Once we’d done that we went back round to do all three again.  There’s not much to note here, other than lunch – we’d had a plan to take a flask of boiling water and make Pot Noodles (as we don’t have the equipment to make hot food at the remote service), so we decided to try that.  Paul started out by decorating the car with the “dust” from his Pot Noodle, which gave me a laugh and made it look very odd.  The water wasn’t hot, so the Pot Noodles were… disgusting!  Something hot though, at least.  This was all made a lot more amusing for me as Paul had forgotten his hat so decided to make do with a towel wrapped round his head – the site of him struggling with a Pot Noodle with a towel round his head, complaining about how cold it was tickled me.  It was a towel from a gym that he never went to, but was given it when he joined, so he reckons the towel cost him a couple of thousand!
Anyway, the next three runs went well – again, getting a bit quicker and taking slightly less moronic lines through the corners, and the alarm on the GPS speedo went off far more often, so we were clearly going better, another good sign.  The back tyre stayed up (so make sure you have your valve caps on, kids), and off we went back to Cardiff, to collect the WRC tracker from ISC.  The traffic was hideous, so it took a LONG time to get there, and when we arrived at just after 6pm… No-one was there.  They should have been there until 7pm, but had clearly all naffed off.  Brilliant.  We phoned the competitor liaison officers, and got no reply, and left messages to that effect.  We’d taken at least an extra hour going to Cardiff for no reason at all.  And now, folks, I’m going to have a moan.  ISC have been utterly useless every time we’ve had to deal with them, and it looks like this year is no exception; the schedule is extremely tight for people like us, and we made a big effort to get there to pick up a piece of equipment that is no use to us that we are forced to carry, and if it gets damaged, we are left with a massive bill for it.  We have since been told that they will be open until 3pm, but given that we’ll be out on recce, this could be “interesting”.  As far as I see it, they should have been there when they were supposed to, and if they weren’t there to dispense their equipment, then they will need to be available at a time that suits us, not the other way round.  Sermon over.
So, aside from issues with ISC-T (and I at least know what the T stands for now), it’s been a GOOD day.  Tomorrow will be a LOT busier, but with any luck it will go as well, and this time tomorrow we will have recce’d all the stages, been scrutineered, and be ready to go.  Even the hot water in the house is working!

The house is about 12 miles from the Bay, but getting there is fairly easy – only the last couple of miles are on narrow lanes, the rest is A road.  And it’s a really nice place; part of a converted farm, it’s very nicely done, with some ‘interesting’ accomodation upstairs (with two single beds, which are accessed by what is probably best described as a porthole!), and the rest of the place is very plush.  Got settled in and made a plan for tomorrow, and all of this was only foiled by the boiler not working; the owners have promised that someone will take a look at it tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll have hot water for then.

So, we’re all ready for the recce tomorrow – a long drive to start out with, and this year because we were a bit worried about the schedule, we’ve got Patterson’s notes of all the stages that we can then modify.  With any luck this will make for a smooth and easy recce, but we will see tomorrow.  As it is, I need a good night’s sleep, so that’s what I’m going to try to get now!

Yesterday I was navigating for Tony in his 205 on the Tempest, and usually I’d have made a full entry on it, but I have been way too busy, so that will happen another day. However, today was all about getting the last things done on the car and equipment to get everything ready to go to Wales tomorrow.

First up, some mapping – while the full power/throttle mapping was all done, the last-minute change of fuel pressure amplified a problem that was already there – there were a few “holes” in the fuelling, where the car would run really lean, and one of them was at light throttle and about 2-3000rpm, meaning it was difficult (if not impossible) to pull away “nicely”. While this won’t be a problem on the stages, it will on the road sections, and pulling away from controls, etc., so it was time to sort that out. Running with the laptop (rather than logging and remapping from that) pinpointed the areas that needed adjustment, and 4 sets of changes saw the problems largely eradicated – not perfect (with slightly lean or slightly rich in places), but driveable, and a relief that the car started up so cleanly from cold. Took over an hour to sort this out though.

Next up, collecting the van (thanks again Mark), getting a few supplies, and then buying some new mains extension leads. H&S is apparently going to be stricly enforced courtesy of Cardiff Council, and I needed therefore to replace my perfectly good mains leads (which I don’t have PAT test certificates for, and couldn’t arrange at short notice, funnily enough), which will then be OK. I now have new lights and mains leads; I don’t have the money for a generator or mains hookup, so there is no welding or grinding option – I hope I don’t need it!

Then, sorting out a couple of things for the car – the fuel pipes (which are solid metal, and have a SWP of over 2000psi) apparently need to be protected, so they have been plastic covered. In addition, the FIA rules say they should be grounded to the car body (which makes sense), so I’ve done that. I’ve also removed the camera box as a) we’re not running one this year b) it’s a pain as it bangs on the helmets and c) even if we were running a camera I have the nice little GoPro camera now. So, that’s out the way, along with a LOT of wiring for it. Much tidier.

Next, removal of stickers and goo – thankfully Mum did this, saving me a fair bit of effort!

Then, removing all the “mapping” electronics – LM-1 and LMA-3 logging units and the ECU control box/wiring. They have been in the car for a LONG time – in fact I had a bit of a “Ripley” moment (where she says to the Alien ‘You’ve been in my life so long I can’t remember anything else’) when I took it all out. I was a bit worried that the O2 sensor wouldn’t come out, but thankfully it did. Even better, I’d not lost the plug to fill the hole. Result.

Next up, change of wheels – putting the rally wheels on (with new R700s), using my nice new Clarke wheel nut gun (again bought as a result of H&S as I can’t run my compressor!), and then putting the wheels from the rally car onto the recce car.

Now, sumpguards. Fortunately this went smoothly too – the recce car one hasn’t been on in 2 years, but went on with little trouble – I’d even kept the washers and nuts with it, so no searching was needed. The rally car one was straightforward too.

Then collecting the trailer, changing a couple of wheels as the tyres were dodgy, and then loading the van – this took a LONG time as there’s a lot of stuff to pack, including a couple of gazebos, tools, lighting, etc. This took a couple of hours, and by now it was already dark. Hooked the trailer up, got the rally car on, re-fixed the indicator on the trailer that was playing up, and found that the recce car now wouldn’t start (flat battery). And that’s how it stands right now, as I’ve just had dinner. Nearly done, but not quite. Just need to do a few bits and pieces, drop the recce car off at Paul’s and then pack. Unfortunately I need to go to work tomorrow (as I need the money to pay for the new helmet aside from anything else), and as it’s dark I can’t take a “ready to go” pic, but I will do tomorrow morning, with any luck.

In the meantime, this picture will have to do, drawn for me by Sennen, Tammie’s son.  Loving the look on Paul’s face!

Hopefully we'll go fast enough to scare Paul!

So, I made a last-minute effort to gain some more sponsors, and they have come up trumps!  The stickers arrived today (once more thanks to the ever-brilliant Andy for them), and I’ve just put them on, having finished work, in the breaks in the rain!

Valeting.co - car care products.

Nic Nottingham's Nailart Colour!

Sabden Motor Bodies

Sapphire Yachting - for an excellent experience in Skiathos, Greece

The lovely Tammie Barnes wanted this one. 🙂

Steven Tilley

Mark "The Legend" Hawkins, for saving the day!

Helen Phillips' favourite website!

So, huge thanks to everyone.  There are a few little things to do before Monday morning, but most of everything is in place.  Which is handy as I’m navigating for Tony on the Tempest tomorrow, and you can check out my location in real time using the “Live Tracking” link above.  Well, hopefully, if Google Latitude holds up as it should do….

… well, I’ll leave you to fill in a word of your choice.

Last time up, I was waiting for Tyres and still no news on the helmet.

So it’s been a day of dealing with other people’s BS and screw-ups.  Firstly the tyres – they arrived yesterday, and I didn’t get a chance to look at them other than the tread (I didn’t get in until after 11), noticing that 2 of the tyres were way more worn than I’d been told or sent pictures off.  Packed the others off to Kinson Tyres for fitting, only to be told that the beads on several of them were knackered, and they wouldn’t inflate.  And looking at the bead (which should be a smooth bit of rubber, as it seals against the rim and holds the air in), it’s not surprising to see why:

So that's the bit that seals the air in...

Needless to say, this isn’t good, according to the tyre fitter, nor anyone else I’ve asked.  The seller says he’ll have them back and use them himself, which is fair enough, but it’s been a pain in the backside dealing with all this, and means that I’ve spent more on postage than I should have, have to mess about sorting them going back out, and of course don’t have as many tyres as I wanted.

Secondly, the helmet.  As I’d paid the guy THREE WEEKS ago and heard nothing, I started a Paypal dispute on Monday, having emailed and phoned the guy several times with no response.  I then put a post on the forum where I’d seen the helmet, saying that I’d paid out 250 Euros and got nothing in return.  And amazingly, I get a phone call from said seller, who wants me to “take my comments back”.  So after a protracted discussion in which he finally admits that he should have sent it a while ago (after I had to turn into a prosecution lawyer), and that he said he’d already sent it yesterday and could give me a tracking number for it, I agreed I’d remove my message as soon as I could track it.  And of course, the punchline?  The tracking number he sent me doesn’t work, but he’s still had the cheek to ask me again to remove my comment!  Just as soon as the helmet arrives, dear, just as soon as.

In the meantime I’ve had to shell out £400 on a new G78 HANS helmet from EARS.  It should be arriving tomorrow, providing they aren’t from the same fantasy island that the seller of the other helmet was!  No of course, this is a joke, they were very helpful on the phone, so I’m sure I’ll at least get that in time.

Stickers are in the post, mind..