Skoda Rally Blog

Scrutineering is one of my least favourite parts of rallying. Not that I’ve ever had a car fail it, it’s just that it’s the final hurdle between you and an event. This morning we got to service for about 8am (after some left hand/right hand not knowing directions from the security who’d told us to use a specific entrance last night which was now closed, wasting 10 minutes), and did the final few things needed before scrutineering – fitting the WRC tracker was one of them, but this went reasonably smoothly as the mountings were already there…. and didn’t line up! The plate that the tracker box sits on had different alignment (only a couple of mm, but still), so that needed work, and the plate I’d made up for the console also didn’t line up. I wasn’t arsed to measure it, but I’m sure their diagram is wrong. Anyway, two bolts and a cable tie saw that sorted out. Stickering the car up also had to be done, and this is the one thing Paul isn’t good at (he earlier said if he was good at stickers then he “would be considered a God”), so I did all of those, and not as well as I’d like – the high vis numbers for the rear doors are always really poor quality vinyl and don’t stick well if there’s been water even in the same postcode in the last 24 hours.

After packing everything else into the car (protective clothing, homologation papers, etc), we set off for noise test. Which wasn’t where it was on the diagram. Asked a guy at remote refuel, and he looked at me like I was an alien. He spoke English (and sounded to be a native) but asking him where the noise test was may as well have been in Serbo-Croat. Glad we’re not paying 5 euros a litre for the privilege of his company then!

Finally we found out noise test had been moved to scrutineering, so we set off down there, and passed the noise test. One of the orange suits opened the bonnet, and told me the drilling i’d made (which was according to the diagrams and also precisely as instructed last year) wasn’t adequate and I’d have to re-do it, this time through the block only. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, but he didn’t put the bonnet pins back in (despite closing the bonnet and looking like he had done) and fortunately someone unconnected told me that they weren’t in properly!

Having gone back to the van and made the drilling, we returned and got through OK, to the check for radios “We don’t have any, mate”, and the WRC tracker. If you don’t know, this is a GPS-based transmitter that has two purposes – crew safety (as we can flip a switch if we’re in an SOS situation) and also for making the TV coverage cheaper – this is where the Virtual Spectator bit gets its data from. We have to put down a credit card with enough to cover the cost of the gear (around ?3000) if it gets damaged by us, and I’ve previously found the ISC staff mostly miserable to deal with; when Paul collected the tracker he asked if he should check it and the guy said “No need, I’ve checked it myself”. Clearly he hadn’t checked it as it didn’t work. Many reasons were given, including that we might be too close to a building (!!!), but it didn’t work and after a delay they gave up and in we went to scrutineering. Firstly the car was weighed (safely over at 990kg), and then into a scrutineering bay. Paul took care of the clothing and helmets while I did the car. While the clothing was being checked, he was asked if we had a HANS device, and of course we don’t (hence not doing Rally GB next year as they’ll be compulsory). The guy went on to ask another competitor, saying “HANS”, and the guy got his gloves out. He asked again – “HANS” and the guy waved his gloves again. Turns out he thought he was saying “Hands”…

Scrutineering of the car was fairly straightforward – a young female trainee was doing it, and I feared over-zealous checking of everything, but fortunately that wasn’t the case – a couple of ‘queries’ were pointed out, but it was all OK, but it did take a long time – nearly an hour in total – although some other cars seemed to be there all the time we were there. So we were ready to go…. except the tracker, which was checked again on exit and guess what? Still not working. THey promised to come visit us ASAP as we said we were heading off.

While we waited, I took the opportunity to make the most of the ?750 pass we were each wearing and get closer than the public are allowed to Loeb’s car which was just back from shakedown. The difference between these cars and the road ones is absolute – just removing the back wheel showed the bespoke suspension and enormous brakes, and that was just on the back. The underside of the car is all guarded and very smooth, and of course nearly every mechanical part is only from the WRC car. While this might seem fantastic on the surface (and in an engineering view, it definitely is), is it any wonder that the sport is becoming too expensive to compete in? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying for a moment that I think I have the talent or ability to do anything like that. But there are people out there who could who will never even think about it because it’s a million miles away from a normal car, and aside from ours and about 3 others, there are no “normal” cars in this event. Yes, these cars are incredibly capable, but they are almost TOO capable – they aren’t as spectacular to watch as an over-powered car with not enough grip (although this week, I think more grip and less power would be a safer way to go, but in normal conditions it’s a bit boring). And with the way things are financially at the moment and massive costs to run front-running cars, is it any wonder there’s little interest? I can’t see why Ford or Citroen do it, really….

Once I’d had my fill of this, we sorted out the tracker. They turned up and unplugged and plugged it in several times – this hadn’t worked earlier, so I wasn’t surprised when it didn’t work now, and then they came back with TWO replacement boxes. And a good job too, as the first replacement was also duff.

Finally we were ready to go, so we did – took the recce and rally cars back to the house, ready for a relaxing afternoon until about 4:30 or so, when it’ll be time to head off to Cardiff for the ceremonial start. Ian should be here by then…

This year’s schedule is a lot easier than previous years, meaning that we were only had 3 “local” stages to recce, and then Cardiff. I’d not realised the length of some of them – 30km, 27km and 20km for Resolfen, Rheola and Port Talbot. Rheola is the same as last year, whereas Resolfen was longer, and Port Talbot in reverse. The stage wouldn’t open until 10:30, and we got there a bit early to find a short queue waiting, and they started the cars going in in groups of 5. One of the marshals gave me news that I wasn’t too keen on – they’d been told that it was actually more treacherous than Myherin was yesterday, and that most of it was very icy; there was one section where people were apparently unable to get up as it was snow that had melted and re-frozen and was just ice. He said “you’ll be OK in a 4WD” and then looked at the car as I did. “Have you got knobblies on?” – fortunately the answer was yes, but I wasn’t feeling that confident now! I walked about a bit on the road and it seemed reasonably grippy, despite being icy. Maybe it’d be OK, and they were just chinese whispers.

Off we went in a group of 5 cars, with us in the middle of them. Although most of the first part of the stage was in the shade, the grip seemed OK, and we made decent progress. Where it was in the sun it had melted and the grip was just fine, and this was a lot better. A bit into the stage there were a few slippy moments but it was still all OK really, until we got to something that always worries me – three people stood near a corner, which obviously meant there was some chance of a problem. And there was – zero grip, it was very icy, and a touch of the brakes stalled the engine and I couldn’t restart it. We yawed to a halt, fortunately without hitting anything, and I got going again, and the car behind seemed either to make the same mistake or just to decide to take the line we were on, so I got out of the way. From then on it seemed OK, and I just took it reasonably carefully in the places that looked bad. No more dramas, and a happy crew. Well, until I went over a big stone and beat the sumpguard in – result, one vibey car!

We came round a 3 right and saw the car in front of us had stopped, and had a big queue in front of it. Clearly there was a problem, so we pulled up, and got out. The guy in front (from car 69) was making sliding about gestures with his feet, which was about right – what we’d been driving on was really, really slippy and yet it’d seemed OK in the car at the time. While we were waiting I took the opportunity to get out of the car and have a stretch and take a picture or two while Paul put “Pacific State” by 808 state on the ipod, and this was really surreal, but unfortunately didn’t last long, we were off again.

Strangely there didn’t seem to be any reason here for the delay (I was expecting either the previously mentioned sheet of woe) and we just went on our way.

The top of Resolfen is a plateau which is quite exposed, and the track makes its way around most of it. This was sunny, clear and still, and I wasn’t expecting what happened next – there were quite a few cars here, and the only other car we’d seen which was in “our league”, a G-reg Peugeot 309, pulling into the traffic, where it was a 600 yard or so straight, with a slight incline, and I mean SLIGHT! As soon as we were on it, I thought there was trouble afoot, and there was – the 309 seemed to be slowing a lot, and so did we. The Skoda isn’t a grunty car by any stretch of the imagination, and it was wheelspinning all over the place. It was hard to keep even walking pace up, and the car behind us (I think Tom Cave, but not sure) got very close as clearly he had an LSD in his car (looked like a serious recce car to me), and we were unable to get going properly. I couldn’t stop to let him past and had to just worry about my progress and let him worry about his. Apologies Tom, there was nothing I could do here. It took an AGE to get up here, while a couple of 4WD cars just nipped past like there was no problem at all (there wasn’t for them, of course). Eventually we made it up the glacier and turned onto a less treacherous track. The next section of the stage was very slippy too (although not as bad), and being downhill is always a little trickier. We had an EVO a short distance behind, but there was nowhere I could stop without being in danger of getting stuck, so I kept going. He kept his distance and on one slow corner (where I’d had a bit of a slide) he was completely sideways, so he hadn’t got too much grip either.

A long descent led to the end of the familiar part of the stage (as it’s extended from last year’s route), and the new section was a mixed bag. Good beacuse it was at lower altitude and therefore not iced up solid, but some parts of it looked to be very low-grade, and will cut up like hell on the rally – they seemed more like fire breaks than forestry tracks, reminiscent of some of the crappier parts of the Sunseeker. I think the FC are getting away with charging for substandard tracks in a lot of places here today.

Eventually we got to the stage finish, and pulled over. A decision was made on something we’d talked about when we’d stopped in the queue, and that was to not re-attempt the stage. The notes we had were good enough for our purposes and I really didn’t fancy trying the ice sheet of doom again, and possibly getting stuck. If we went off then it would be the end of the recce for us, and a real nightmare. This meant we’d get to the next stage, Rheola, at just about the opening time for the non-priority drivers, and that suited us just fine. When we got there we had to wait for a bit as Mark Higgins may be back for another run, and the friendly start crew even conjured up a cup of Tea for Burley. And told us there had been no problems in the stage as well, which sounded good to me. Off we went, and this was much more like it. Yesterday and this morning dented my confidence; I’ve not driven on ice before, and it’s beyond me. But this was just gravel, with some icy patches here and there, and was great fun. The Rheola stage is being used four times, in a sense, as the Walters Arena part is being used twice on Friday as well as when it’s part of the full Rheola stage. The first part of it is great, but towards the top there’s a quarrying operation, and the road becomes something more akin to the moon than Wales. Again, I think it’s daylight robbery being charged to use this road, as it’s a pile of crap and damage central to the car, but there you go. Once this section was out the way, we dropped down again and found the start position for Walters, which was clearly marked with a crew. We took the opportunity to stop there and take stock, and then head into the arena itself. While it would be possible to drive it visually given our speed, we made notes and this year noted the jump better, as I don’t want a repeat of last year’s front-bending nose-dive. The rest of Walters is great fun, the car was sliding around and we really got into a good rhythm. I started to feel like I could actually drive again, which was good. The next section after the arena is open with a series of 1 and 2 bends, BUT a few rocks inside to catch the unwary, and then a long drop down into a tighter section of forest (where we lost the tailpipe on the car in 07), and this, too was good fun. There were a few bits that were slippy and dodgy, but most of it was grippy, and ALL of it was good fun. Making the notes seemed to be much easier this year, and more detailed too. The end came up too soon, and I couldn’t wait to go back round again for the second run.

The second run of Rheola was much, much better. Paul made some minor adjustments to lengths and a few corners, and added some detail, but we seemed to get a much better rhythm through the stage, and caught the 309 up again and passed it (they were on their first run, obviously), and had an even better time, particularly in Walters Arena. Realised I’d called the enormous right turn on the way down from there as a left, but aside from that it was good fun all the way round – we caught someone up which slowed us up a bit, but for the most part it was all good stuff. Now it was time to trot off to Port Talbot….

… which is run in reverse compared to last year. It was probably my least favourite stage previously; I’m not sure why but it never seemed ‘right’, despite being beautiful. But being in reverse could change all that. We got to the arrival and were told there was a cyclist going WD in the stage, and to look out for him, and that it was slippy where the sun hadn’t been – looked like a return to the slidy terror of every other bloody stage then….

Anyway, we set off up the road, and it seemed OK so far – and indeed I guess being in reverse meant it seemed completely different; aside from the hairpins at the beginning I couldn’t remember a lot of the stage at all until there’s a right where the outside is built up to stop you dropping off a rather large cliff, and this seemed much better this way round – the following road was uphill which is always a bit more secure, and the descent down to the bottom of the valley was much more pleasant than I remember it. Once you get to the bottom there is a small concrete bridge, which usually has (I think) railings on it. Not this year (they always get destroyed by someone anyway), so some care is needed there, but the thing I realised at this point was we were completely out of the sun, and there hadn’t been any icy death moments – in fact the whole stage had been pretty good throughout. On the way up the other side all was well, and the car was revving its little nuts off as I kept it pinned in second as it wouldn’t pull third gear. The final section of the stage is a flatter, open section which has a few clumps of trees but for the most part is exposed and quite sandy-looking. This section was a LOT better in this direction, and seemed to flow really well. The only thing I recognised was when we were coming up to reach the end of the stage, meaning that I wasn’t completely asleep, and 20k had passed really quickly.

Time for the second run, and there were “special instructions” to take you back to the stage start, which seemed pointless as they were just normal road directions; I can’t see why they’d be put there as this was the most direct route anyway (as confirmed by TomTom), but I guess I don’t know the full story. We were back there soon enough (once we’d passed a Tractor towing a trailer with a digger on, a contender for the “slowest vehicle” crown), and when I commented to the stage crew that I liked it a lot more in this direction, one guy said it was a little like NZ in places with cambered corners, and he was right – the section at the end is like this.

A quick tribute to R487 JDV, my lovely little recce Felicia. I’ve done basically NOTHING to it aside from change the camchain, and it’s done Rally GB three times – all the stages, and been beaten up. It’s never let us down, and I know it’s just a car, but it’s a bloody great one!

I got Paul to run the camera for a bit here, as we got down to the bottom of the stage by the bridge, as I thought it would be a nice memory, particularly as it’s the last stage I’ll be recceing for a while, if not ever. The rest of the run went well enough to catch up someone in an evo (who thoughtfully pulled over as we were massively quicker than them, as we were on our second run), and I really, REALLY enjoyed it. This was what I wanted to spend Friday, Saturday and Sunday doing, but obviously that’s not going to be the case, given the forecast. So I had to make the most of it, and this I did. Obviously obeying the 80kph speed limit, your FIA-ness.

Then it was off to Cardiff. This is a 45 mile drive, and we hoped we’d miss major traffic, which we did until the centre of town. In previous years there has been a massive queue for the stage, and around a 90 minute wait before doing the recce for the Stadium. Paul’s not been too happy about this, but I have always wanted to do it as (a) I’ve paid for it (b) How often do you get to drive in the Millennium Stadium (OK, 4 times now, hopefully 5 by Saturday), and (c) we have to come here anyway for Documentation so we may as well. We turned into the Stadium to find a helpful security guard, 3 marshals and …. NO QUEUE! We just drove to the start line, waited for someone to come out, and then in we went! The lighting, apparently, wasn’t exactly as it will be on Saturday, but I think that will make no odds whatsoever to us. The stage layout has changed since last year, going for a “kidney” shape instead of figure 8, for a faster experience, but there’s still a tight corner, and getting it wrong (as I so nearly did on the second lap) would mean a trip into the barriers. It was close…. but not that close. Time for a second run, and I tried a different line into that corner, which meant I’d just hit a different barrier, but it seemed a bit quicker so that’s how I’ll go on Saturday, if I’m not in a morgue. We videoed this on the camera, but it’s too big to upload from the mobile… it will follow though!

With the recce out the way, the only thing left to do was Documentation, another area where usually there’s a queue, but as there wasn’t anyone there, it was quick. And as we were amongst the first, those doing it were very chirpy (particularly the woman who did our stuff), and even tried to get us to go to the end-of-rally party, which this year is sponsored by Moet, apparently. BUt I don’t like champagne, and I predict I’ll be removing a scrap Felicia from a trailer by then, so we made our excuses and left. On the upside, we’ve been given a bunch of free stuff – some lovely notepads, some pens, and somehow they’ve managed to make the “Wales Rally GB” crew bags an even worse design than before! Attempts to get the sticker for the in-car camera drew a blank (no-one had ANY clue about this here, which seems a bit odd), so we trolled back to Swansea.

The only other update is we now don’t have all the service crew we originally had – Ali and Ian (who I met on the Plymouth-Banjul rally last Christmas) were due to do it, but Ali can’t get off work, and he’s the mechanic. Hopefully Ian will be OK – he’s a top guy and I’m sure he’ll be able to do whatever’s needed. Hope so, or I will be doing it all!

Today the real business of the rally began. The Recce. Driving the stages and making the notes of them, so you can drive them more quickly and safely on the event itself. This is something that we only get to do when we do Rally GB, so it wouldn’t have been a bad idea to have practiced beforehand. It hadn’t happened, aside from me practicing calling out the roads where I’d been over the last few weeks.

We set off a bit late (7am) and headed for the first of today’s five stages to recce, Halfway. This is a mixed stage which is partly open “military” ground and partly forest, and is being run backwards compared to how we’d done it in the past, meaning an unfamiliar stage, a complete re-write of the notes, and two passes being needed. We were a bit later than we thought we should be; we got there for 8:10am, expecting a large queue. There were only two cars there, which either meant everyone had already gone, or they’d got up late. Either way, we got started, and the first issue was the weather – it was already a bit wet and cold, but now it was sleet/snowing. This is a totally new experience for me – I’ve never driven on snow aside from mucking about or when going on holiday, and certainly never on gravel covered in snow. It seemed OK at first, but then started to get slippy unexpectedly. The note-making came back to us fairly quickly, but it wasn’t helped by the snow becoming really intense by now, and covering the ground well. The first part of Halfway is open and I thought quite simple, but I was wrong – there were a number of places where it was quite tricky and it seems that there are bends which flowed better in reverse to this year’s direction. Once we got to the forestry section, it was really slippy in places, and with the drop-offs that are on a few of the corners, it’s important not to get them wrong. The problem with this is that if you become all tense and worried then you seem to MAKE bad things happen, and there were a couple of “moments” where things could have been a lot smoother. Paul seemed unbothered by any of this, and we got to the end of the stage without major incident.

Next it was off to Crychan – you have to do both stages on pass one, and then back for pass two.

Here’s a quick video of a few seconds of it….

This is one of my favourite stages (or at least it was the other way round), but being covered in snow made previously slippy bits seem really dodgy – we weren’t going quickly at all, and yet the car was bobbing about without any warning (to me, anyway), but in other bits there would be good grip – the problem was telling where it was. Or not, in my case. Either way, the stage went fairly smoothly – there are some great sections in here, and once we got going OK it seemed good (albeit slow), and the notes seem more detailed than last year’s. There are always things that you think you’ve missed out and decisions to be made (such as putting in small crests that really amount to nothing, or leaving it all as one big distance), but I guess that would come with more practice and be needed with more speed; at the speeds we’re going, it’s far less critical than all the serious crews (i.e. everyone else). Oddly we still hadn’t seen anyone – no-one had overtaken us, and we’d not caught anyone either, parked up. It was like the place was deserted. When we got to the end there was a specific route to be taken to get back to Halfway run two, and it was quite rough and slippy itself! I found it quite odd that I’ve not recognised any of the stages in reverse (both finish lines were a surprise), but on the way back down I went down a track I once drove round (when I visited halfway on my mountain bike in 06) I recognised THAT instead. Weird.

Run 2 on Halfway was next, and when we got to the start, we asked how many were ahead of us – apparently some hadn’t even done their FIRST run at this point, which sounded crazy – maybe they were going to do every stage really quickly or only do one run? Anyway, we set off again, at a bit more of a tilt, with Paul reading the notes back to me and checking that everything is well – usually some adjustments need to be made (some of them where I’d lost it a bit in the car and lost my rhythm), but it was all good really, just minor changes needed and we did the run a fair bit quicker, despite the snow now being quite thick in the middle of the stage – Dixies was just pure white when we crossed it, and the descent from there was pretty slippy; the forestry section was better generally but still had a few surprises in store, but we got to the end OK, and then headed off for Crychan 2….

… which was also good – most of the notes were OK with only minor changes needed, and although there were some more ‘moments’ when I was pushing to feel how much grip there was, it was mostly relatively smooth, and the first time I really missed the power of the rally car, which I guess is a good sign if I wanted to go faster! Again there was the route out, and then off we went to the Mid Wales trio of classic stages, Hafren, Sweet Lamb and Myherin.

Which were a LONG way away! Several people overtook us on the way there (mostly in Subarus or 4x4s, definitely the thing to be using in these conditions), and amazingly we were only about 20 minutes behind schedule. But once we got to the stage start (via some beautiful scenery), I was a bit worried as we were told that Loeb had managed to roll his recce car! I’m not having a particulary confidence-inspiring day, and finding out that one of the best drivers in the world had binned it did nothing to change that! Nice to meet some guys from the britishrally.co.uk forum, but the main thought was “Take it easy, Jones” as we set off into Hafren.

Being a totally new stage I had no idea what to expect, aside from more snow and ice. And I wasn’t disappointed – the stage itself is fantastic, with some long sweeping climbs and probably fantastic views as well, if I’d had a chance to look at any of them, but given the current road conditions even a fraction of a second diverted away from the road could let things get messy – this happened a couple of times when I looked away from where we were going and the end result was….sideways! Lesson Learnt.

I’d love to say more about the stage, but I don’t really remember much specifically about it aside from it seeming a bit shorter than I was expecting – the end came up sooner than I though, and this was possibly a good thing as it was very slippy in places, and as a result the concentration was taking a toll on me, so the chance to relax for a few minutes would be welcome. Except there was no chance to relax as the road between Hafren and Sweet Lamb is…a forestry track, and what’s more it was cold, exposed and snow covered, so it was a bit dodgy in places so that was that. And up to the start of Sweet Lamb, which is a short stage, which ends with a spectator section inside a “bowl”. It was cold, hard and harsh up here, but the stage was mostly good – a couple of dodgy corners, but not too slippy which was welcome. The final section for spectators with a watersplash and jumps looks like it’d be a place to see people get their cars airborne and probably have a few moments. We declined the invitation and trundled round, and then headed off for Myherin.

Fortunately the route to Myherin involved some road, so I had a bit of time to relax mentally (not totally, constable!), which was definitely needed as this is the longest stage of the rally, at 35km. When we got there the arrival crew told us that it was very slippy between posts 8 and 12, and also after the stage finish – and we wouldn’t want to bin it on the way OUT of the stage, would we? No!

The start of Myherin is a series of large hairpins, switching-back up the mountainside, and as soon as we got into the stage it was snowy. Not just a bit, but properly snowy, with the stage COMPLETELY white up ahead – sometimes there was little clue where to go, which made things ‘interesting’, and it was pretty slippy just about everywhere. Once we got high enough, it opens out into a plateau, and a surprise for us – there was a wind farm up here, and these things are MASSIVE. I wished I’d had time to take in more of the desolate view that was up there – an alien world of snow and rock with these three-pronged monsters whirling around. And we had to weave our way between them, which was OK, for the most part; there were a few bits that were dodgy, and the whole track was white everywhere here.

Fairly soon we were at post 8, where we’d been warned that things got slippy. And they weren’t wrong. There was a 100 yard downhill section which goes into a 3 right, and here I thought it was over. Although I’d managed to slow down to about 10mph before it let go, the car was just sliding to the left (and into the trees) no matter what I tried. It probably only took 2 or 3 seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to me, but finally the wheels gripped and tugged the front of the car round, and the back dutifully followed. It wouldn’t have been a bad accident or anything, but it WOULD have been a right pain in the arse. I lost my place for a few seconds and then got on with it. Paul, as ever, seemed untroubled by what had just happened.

The rest of the “danger” section was far grippier, despite looking bad, and then out into another exposed section, and then into the woods once more for a BIG uphill section. There were several cars stopped here, the crews were out, but they were motioning to us to keep going; I guess others had stopped and regretted it, so we just pinned the mighty 50 Czech horses and made it to the top. I think I saw Matt Cotton at this point, but I didn’t stop to say Hi. Sorry, Matt.

The rest of the stage was much as before – there are some great sections here of flowing left / right 1 and 2 corners, so I guess the big boys will be flying through here, and I’d love a 4WD car in these conditions, for sure. The last section of the stage was quite open and exposed and a bit slippy, but we got to the end OK.

Once we got there and got everything ready for the drive back round, we saw a fair bit of traffic and realised why – someone looked to have stuffed their Recce car (an Evo) off the track after the stage finish (possibly), and it was being recovered (definitely) – we later found out this was none other than Sebastien Loeb who’d gone off here. Care was taken here and all the way down to the road, and we could see a few tracks in the snow where people before had got it wrong and had some off-road moments!

Back round to Hafren for another run, and this was again a case of the stage being much better second time round. The crew there were pleased to see us back in the same car, and also seemed to like my testing strategy of “take the car to work”, which was nice. The stage went well, and quicker than before, with only minor changes needed to the notes. The same went for Sweetlamb as well.

And hext, Hafren. By now we were running about 30 minutes behind our original schedule and we only got there with 15 minutes before the stage closed, but we did make it. This time it was considerably snowier than before, and slippier too. The dodgy section where we’d nearly gone off was still bad (but seemed better), and the big hill with the many people stopped on it was now clear (although with marks showing their struggles to get up the hill). The end section, however, nearly proved too much. What’s happened several times today is that just touching the brakes with the car still in gear will stall it really easily. Which isn’t good when using power is the only way to get the car to go in the right direction. And this happened on a 2 right – the car was drifting towards the outside of the turn (which is on a raised section) and towards the only tree in the vacinity. I dropped the clutch and then bump-started the engine and managed to get us going in the right direction. Again, it probably only took a couple of seconds, but it seemed hairy. And this time… Paul noticed it – I saw him brace himself, and that worried me more than anything!

Luckily this was only about 1km from the end, so not too far to go with zero confidence. Just the long (100 mile) drive back to service to go. By this time it was dark, and there seem to be a LOT of people in Wales with trailers who have very high headlights as a result, making for an unpleasant drive back when I was already fried from a day’s note-making. We eventually got back to service (2 hours later) and got the WRC tracker from a man who works for ISC who clearly isn’t troubled by self-doubt (as he said there was no need for Paul to check what was in the package as he’d “packed every one himself”, but given ISC’s behaviour before….)

Anyway, today has been a difficult day. It really reminds me of the first time I did a forest rally, Newton Abbot Audi stages where I was dog slow and spun the car several times without warning. I left there with no confidence whatsoever, and I feel exactly the same way now. I guess snow is the difference between men and boys, and I’d better go get my school uniform.

On previous years, we’ve driven to Cardiff to get the passes and stickers before getting setup, but this year we thought we’d see if we could get set up without making the 2 hour round trip. And amazingly we did – we managed to get everything in, unloaded and set up, and it saved a load of time and effort. The service area is much the same as last year, but this year we’re in a better place for two reasons. Firstly there’s actual Tarmac where we are, not just broken up gravel, which will be a huge improvement. Secondly, someone’s put a wall of rocks between where we are and the sea, so the wind should be a little less of a problem – it’s far less exposed.

Getting everything set up wasn’t entirely straightfoward, mostly because the service area wasn’t fully manned and someone had gone home with the keys for one area, apparently, so there was a fair wait while that was sorted, and Paul went off to get a lock for the trailer and the camera as Chris Adamson from the Echo spoke to us and wanted a picture of the car. By the time Paul got back (due to traffic), it was getting a bit dark, but the pictures look OK (we’ll see if they’re good enough for print though), and it gave me time to sort out a few little things, including re-doing the toolkit for the car, fitting the last few stickers and adding a SECOND belt cutter – why on earth we need TWO, I don’t know, but it’s there and done.

As I was just finishing off, Jamie Smith turned up with his Impreza and with Simon, so hopefully they’ll get further than Stage 5 last year – his words, not mine! They’re servicing just behind us, and are in the same boat as us in terms of crew and equipment, so hopefully both of us will make it to the end this year!

So, here’s a picture of us with the car…

And here’s a rubbish video of the service area. Better will follow, I promise.

Here are some photos from Rally GB 2007

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Often I find that when I’ve slept on something the solution becomes apparent. However this time I only slept until 2:55 am before spending the rest of the night worrying about what to do, and only when I went for a run did the solution appear – take the back box from the recce car and weld it to the rally car exhaust. Might sound obvious, but the standard exhaust is much smaller than the rally car one, so the idea was to leave a leaky joint, therefore not totally sapping the power (as the standard box is quite restrictive) but make it quiet enough to avoid frowns. But this was providing it would come off the recce car – otherwise we’d have to get a new one, and no-one could have one to us in time, so we went to service and amazingly, it looked like our luck had changed – we got the backbox off fairly easily, and then got everything prepped ready to put it on. You have a 10 minute service at the beginning of each day on WRGB, and this meant we had 10 minutes to get the car back to our area, get everything else done, get the exhaust welded on and get back to the service out control. And amazingly we did it – the car was HIDEOUSLY loud beforehand, people staring as we went, and afterwards it sounded OK – not quiet, but not loud at all. Got to the tyre marking area and then noticed another really BAD rattle from the front end – this was no doubt covered up before by the exhaust sound, and we stopped on the road section to take a look, but it looked like the top mount spherical bearing was loose, and there was nothing to do except just get on with it, so that’s what we did. It’s a long run up to SS7, Crychan, and even longer when every little lump in the road is greeted with a big rattle, but we got there OK, but only just – only a couple of minutes to spare, and this was after the last section was done with Paul calling the corners out from the map. Saturday’s stages are my favourites, so this would hopefully be a chance to have good fun on some relatively smooth forest tracks. Unfortunately the battery for the camera had died, so we couldn’t video the stage, but we headed in and got on with it instead!

Finally getting a chance to drive in good conditions mean that I could get on with actually driving, and the biggest problem I’ve had this year is a total lack of driving – the last time out was the Sunseeker, which went OK, but no better as it was still in the old car, so I was hoping I’d finally get a chance to drive the car and not think “I wish this was quicker up hill”, and this actually happened. Becuase of the new exhaust it wasn’t revving out as much as it should have, but it was going much, much better than last year’s car, and was good fun to drive once I’d taken on board the extra revs and using 1st for hairpins. The thing that really made me clock that I was going quicker than last year was that on several corners the back was getting very loose and I had to back off in a few more places as things got twisty. Good fun. The C2R2 caught us about half way through the stage, and it worked out nicely (again), letting him past and not losing too much speed. Paul has got very good at letting me know how close cars behind are (or indeed not), and keeping me focused on what’s in front, not behind, and this meant everything was going well. Some of the uphill sections were treacherously slippy (at one point we nearly left a totally straight stretch of road), but got to the end OK, but while we were waiting for the cars, the oil pressure light was flashing on tickover, not a good sign at all, and then it wouldn’t re-start, took several goes before it finally lit up. I thought it was probably curtains, so went slowly to SS8 and let it cool down in case it was just very hot oil.

With an eye on a finish (at least getting to the stadium) I decided to take Epynt a bit easier, and this was a mistake. I’ve got quite used to pulling the front round using a bit of power, and when you try not to do that, you understeer off very quickly. So this was soon given up and I just got on with it instead – I’d rather blow the engine up than hit a rock, much easier to fix! Once we got going properly, it was good fun again, with some cars off in very, VERY odd places and positions. The “top” of Epynt is a long tarmac road, and here the car’s lack of outright power and steep gearing left it feeling a bit slow (but again much quicker than last year), and then there’s another section where it’s a road which is cut into the surface of the hill. This section was a problem on recce – it seemed OK last year, but we didn’t get it right either time this year, but I said to leave the notes as is, and it worked just fine – took it quite quickly, but it was hard and rutted, far worse than last year. The finish of Epynt is a good section as well, with some 2 and 3 corners, so we can crack on a bit, and it was all feeling good, aside from the rattle which I was trying my best to ignore….

Pic courtesy of Rob Lees, SS8, Epynt 1

And now, onto Halfway. This is my favourite stage of the lot as it starts out with some great ‘forest’ mileage, and then opens up into the army roads at the end which are a different kettle of fish, and if you get ’em wrong, there will be “rock issues”, so care is necessary, and also two mates had come to see us and I wanted to (a) get there and (b) not show us up! The first section went pretty well, probably as well as I’ve ever driven – there seems to come a point where the calls just go in without thinking about them, and it starts to flow properly; each corner you come to goes well (relatively), and you can already ‘see’ what’s about to happen from the calls that are coming. We were being caught by the C2, but then he must have had an issue as again Paul gave me in-depth reports on his progress and then lack of it, so we were on our own for a bit until an Evo ate us, so we let it go, before getting to the last section, which went pretty well, despite a problem with the notes; luckily it was a section that I remembered OK, and there were no issues aside from a change onto tarmac (at a different place to last year’s SS12 problem) being a MASSIVE hit, again I was expecting the car to have broken, and again was pleased that Skoda made ’em tough! We got to the point where our mates were, and I was vaguely aware of a man on a hilltop waving like a maniac, later to find that this was indeed Jim and Stu! By the end of the stage, all was well, and the oil pressure problem wasn’t back, good news finally, despite the rattling.

Photo courtesy of Jon Price

The road section back to service was about 40 miles, and over an hour, so we decided what to do; we abandoned the original plan to change the oil and nick the struts from the recce car, and instead to try to fix the top mount, even if it was a bodge. Time for some fruit, a drink and some chocolate as well as a drink for the car on the way back. Coming into service, we got stuck in the wrong queue (as we’d lost a couple of ‘places’ due to the fuel stop), but got that sorted out and booked in, after being interviewed by a lovely young woman and finally finding out that we were still beating SD Roy, which was great, great news – our times had been good enough to open up a decent gap, and all things considered I think this is good work – the MG is a newer, more powerful car, so we’d done well.

Into service, and another bit of good news; it was just the strut-top nut that was loose – a quick zip up with a wheel nut gone left us with a perfect front end, and not a lot else to do on the car, other than discover that the front crossmember was shifted back a bit, and the radiator bottom mounts had broken, but it was all still there and probably from the “jump” in the Walters Arena where we’d landed heavily, so we left it on the list for the evening service.

The road section to Crychan 2 went much quicker this time, I decided to go as fast as legally possible on the motorway and A roads to get there in time, and this time due to the lack of town traffic, we got there 20 minutes early, so had a time to see some quicker cars go through (and one driver nearly run his nav over as he was reversing!), and get everything set for the stage – this would be good, and the first semi-dark stage, so I’d need to get on with it, and thankfully did so! A few half-spins and a bit of hesitation here and there didn’t help, but we got caught by 3 cars, two Evos and an ST. I can’t believe how quick the Evos are in a straight line – it is unreal; on each time we got caught, they’d appear at a corner in my mirrors and 200 yards later be right behind us; the traction and power is in a different universe to my car, and I guess that explains a lot. Plus these people can really drive! The ST caught us in a more “normal” manner, but still didn’t hang about, but each time we got out the way relatively quickly, and I don’t think it affected either of us too badly. What was affecting me quite badly was that the steering wheel had started to come loose! It started as a small rattle at the start of the stage, but by the end there was quite a bit of play at the rim, and I was glad it hadn’t come off!

Next up, Epynt 2, by this time it was dark, and first thing was to do the bolts up on the steering wheel, no problem once I’d found the allen key, and off we went, this time giving it some beans from the start, so there were no repeats of the overshoots of earlier, and it was going well until we got to the tarmac, when the throttle didn’t seem to be closing fully. By the time we reached the long road at the top of the stage, it was on full throttle all the time, and I had to brake in gear to get round the corner as I didn’t want to blow the engine up, but on gravel this was a recipe for disaster. Now I’d imagine there are people who are reading this who would think “just crack on”, or whatever, but my technique on gravel clearly isn’t good enough, and as the car goes so well it meant I had a real struggle to get the car round, and there were two times where I got it totally wrong and nearly headed off the stage and indeed off a drop. I got to the end losing loads of time (and getting in people’s way, sorry Mandy about that), and at the stop line had to kill the engine. Rolled down the hill, and had a look, but eventually found out that the throttle body was jamming open, and there was no way to stop it – it wouldn’t free up, and taking it apart would have been game over for the car, for sure. But most annoyingly it wouldn’t re-start; it’s always been picky about start up (no throttle, then a quick stab once it fires up), and it wouldn’t go at all. We were there for 40 minutes trying to sort it, but nothing doing, and that was that; the course closing car passed us and we handed our paperwork in as we had no usable spare for it, so no SuperRally for Sunday.

To say I was devastated by this is an understatement – I’ve spent 3 months of every spare hour working on the car to get it ready, and it was finally looking like it was all going to pay off, and then suddenly, it was game over. I am not ashamed to admit that I cried for a bit, but thankfully not only is Paul a good friend and a good navigator, he is also the most positive person I know. Not in an annoying bull-crap “way hey” way, but he’s immensely pragmatic. We were currently stuck in Epynt, miles away from the twins and unable to get back, and it was a miserable cold wet December night. Getting back to service would be a victory now, and we finally got the car going by bump-starting it and having it run flat out everywhere, and stopping the engine on the brakes. At any junction where we HAD to stop (there were 3) I had to turn the ignition on and off to stop the engine blowing itself up, but after nearly an hour we made it back to service, having told everyone what was going on and so on. Got the car to the trailer park, got the van loaded up, and got the car loaded up, and went back to the house.

So, WRGB 2007 – success or failure?

Oddly, I think a success. We did two of the three days of stages, and despite very little driving this year, have both got better at what we do. I’ve nearly single-handedly built a car that went well and handled like a dream, and our retirement wasn’t for want of trying and ultimately came down to a freak failure which I had no way of fixing. I’ll be honest, if I’d not been with Paul, I’d probably have been beating myself up about it still, but I’m not – as he said, no-one died, the car isn’t wrecked, and we’re not “stuck in some shitty forest in the pouring rain with a car off the road waiting to be picked up”. Very true.

Sunday, cleared up, thanked the twins for their ever-fantastic help, and came home. The recce car still runs OK, despite having been hammered to death, had its exhaust nicked and beaten up underneath enough to knacker the handbrake cables. And I have to take it to work tomorrow.

So, thanks to anyone who’s read all this, and thanks to each and every one who’s given us support over the last week, it’s really appreciated. I know we’re just messing about in a very expensive sport for the big boys, but I always thought rallying should be about real cars that are affordable, not ?200k “standard” cars, etc. Thanks to the twins for their support, company and help, and to Paul for being a class act and making the week fly by.

The Felicia’s homologation runs out at the end of next year. Wales Rally GB 2008 is a possibility, and I’d really like to do it, but I’d need to do it with more spares and as much duplication as possible to avoid another “?10 retirement”. And get a few events in as practice beforehand.

After not a lot of sleep (woke up at 4:30, and didn’t get a lot after that), we headed off to service, got there just after the top kiddies were leaving (saw Petter Solberg drive by), and got everything ready to go, again with various things that we’d forgotten to do, such as charger for the tracker that Paul is using (Memory Map), harness adjustments, tool bag, etc., etc and then it was nearly time to go – a couple of hours flies by when you’re panicking! Just had time to get a hot dog in, and saw Tony “everywhere” Jardine in the loos, and then off we went. Trundled off to the start, and went through the fun of tyre marking, which is always a pain when you’ve got two and have to get them out to mark them. In the pouring rain. And off to Stage 1, Port Talbot. We got there in good time, and found a huge queue in the dense fog. And with good reason – the stage had been stopped due to a car hitting a spectator (although there was the usual chinese whispers routine as we heard this that and the other had happened). Behind us was the BF Goodridge tyre techs, taking the temperature of the ground, etc. Which reminded me to check (and reduce) my tyre pressures, so there would be some hope of getting through the next stage. We found out there was a 3-minute gap to the Land Rovers, which while not ideal at least meant some chance of getting a decent run in before being swamped. And eventually had to book in at SS1, and then turn round and run through non-competitively from a junction half way through to the next stage. During this run, I noticed a horrible rattle from the front end, due to low speed, lack of revs and no helmet, and once we got to the end (with several cars off here and there) we took a look and found that it was the spherical top mounts, so hopefully they’d just rattle and not break up (they were brand new, after all), and headed off for SS2, Resolfen. Due to the break from the stoppage, there was another delay while the course was re-checked, and then finally WRGB 2007 actually started for us. It was quite foggy and very slippy, and there were quite a few places where it was difficult to see more than 50 yards in front of the car – oddly it was the open spaces where the fog was, and between the trees it was clearer. The stage was very, VERY rough, and there were quite a few “OOOOH” moments where we hit things and got away with it, but the car wasn’t running well – it wouldn’t rev out above 6k, meaning it was a bit gutless, but I think this was from it having sat so long in various queues, and it got better as we got on. I took the corner where we damaged the wheel very carefully, and then got caught by the lead Land Rover, and let him pass. And then BANG BANG BANG…. just like last year, another damaged wheel. However, we were going OK and there was nowhere to stop, so I thought I’d roll the dice and keep going rather than lose 5 minutes changing it in the middle of the stage, ‘cos I figured that steel would win against aluminium, and the noise got less and less as we went on, so it seemed to be paying off. The latter part of the stage went well, relatively speaking, and we seemed to put in a decent time, beating a few people on the board at the end, which was a real boost. By the time of the road section the knocking noise was almost gone, so I though it best to leave it on for the next stage.

Stage 3 was Rheola, and again it was wet and foggy, with patches of near zero visibility, and it was either hideously rough or treacherously slippy – all the points where we’d marked “hole”, “rough” or “slippy” were 10 times as much, but it was good to finally be giving it some beans, and the car was running a bit better, but mostly 2nd and 3rd gear, as the engine runs high enough for it to be fun. The intercom had given up, so Paul was just saying the calls loudly and I could hear him just fine. The jump in the arena section was quite a surprise, as I’d not noted how sharp it was and did a bit too quickly and came down with a bang. Again we got caught fairly quickly by the first Land Rover but the second one didn’t catch us until just after the flying finish.

The road section was a breeze, with the usual chocolate and a banana, plus some nice water from the quality Tesco water bottles. Service was fairly simple, ‘cos the car was actually all OK. Didn’t change tyres or anything, just put the light pod on, as it was chucking it down and there seemed no point in changing things just for the sake of it. And off we went to Stage 4, which was the first re-run of Port Talbot. We dived in for petrol (having been cut up by someone who was determined to get to the petrol before us, so thanks for that), and found several others with us, which was a surprise. What was more of a surprise was that the M4 was solid with traffic due to an accident (well, 2), meaning that we were very, VERY late to the stage, and ended up running it non-competitively, which wasn’t great, but it was incredibly foggy and dark, which isn’t a good combination. What’s a very bad combination is being told that you’re short-cutting part of the stage and not being told what you’re missing out, and having your section time reduced by 15 minutes. And then to compound this, not being directed by marshals at “new” junctions on stage, meaning that you get lost, and also end up in amongst the land rovers (who were directed correctly by the marshals, making up 5 minutes or more as a result). This meant that the rest of the stage and then the road section had to be driven very quickly, which I really don’t think is a good way to carry on. It’s also not good having to do this in bad conditions with no notes, and there were several hard hits in ruts and so on where it would have been easy to break the car and be out of the event. We arrived late at SS5 only to find that it, too, would be run in the same way, although the re-direction was much, MUCH better done, clearly explained and very nicely indicated by the marshals meaning it was no problem. What was a problem, though, was the time – again 15 minutes had been removed from the time, and we were not hanging about, and yet still we didn’t make it to the regroup control in time; the problem with this is that we have no idea whether we have to keep to the times or not, and I’m surprised no-one had an accident as a result. Another problem was that we saw several foreign crews’ cars on the stage having broken down or crashed earlier, with people still in the car and no SOS or OK board out; we stopped for each of them to be told they were OK, but they should have put the sign out. All the UK crews we saw were doing it right, and it was a pity to see Jamie Smith out.

Another short road section to SS6, and this was actually being run, but we were in the middle of the Land Rovers, which was ‘interesting’, but the stage was quite treacherous – much more damage to it than before, but also more slippy as well, and the fog was very patchy – it was either not there at all, or solid with almost zero visibility. That made it very hairy as you’d suddenly see nothing and then see OK again. Despite the rain and the cold and the late hour, there were still plenty of people about on the stage, some waving us on, and the stage went OK where the visibility was good, but towards the end, disaster struck – suddenly the car got very, very loud, and I suspected a broken exhaust. However, it’s probably not that much louder than many people’s cars, and we carried on; we got caught by one Land Rover, but no-one else; the end of the stage went fairly well so I wasn’t too displeased, especially given the horrible state of the stage – in places it was more like being on the moon than anything else. Got to the end of the stage OK, and then a loud road section including a stop for fuel and to discover that the tailpipe was missing – the horrendous state of the stages had claimed part of the car, and unfortunately not one I have a spare of. We made it back into service in time, and while waiting to check in, traded horror stories with the others; quite a few had tales of crushed tanks, broken cars and horrendous damage (some of which we’d seen evidence of), and we checked in and then off to service, which was mostly routine – check levels, remove the lamp pod, check the wheels (the tyres had worn very little, surprisingly, so I’ve elected to leave them on for tomorrow morning), and to work out what to do with the exhaust. Although I still think it would pass noise test, I’m worried that we’ll get stopped, and I’d be devastated as it’s such a small thing – with a 2″ piece of tube and a small silencer and 15 minutes with the welder, we’d be back in business, but I can’t see that happening at the moment. We’ve mapped where all the local likely places are, so we’ll be knocking on their doors early tomorrow morning as we’ve planned what to fit to the car, and we’ll take it from there. There’s only a 10-minute service on the car, so there’s not a lot of time, but obviously we can work on the part away from the car, and have a good idea of what to fit. Hopefully it’ll work out, but I have a feeling this could be game over. Disaster.

Today had two main objectives – firstly get the car scrutineered, and then get to the ceremonial start in Cardiff. However, before that we decided we’d go and see how it’s done properly at shakedown, so we trundled off down there to see the Priority 1 drivers do their stuff, trekked up to the easiest corner to get to and then…. nothing! Saw a couple of people pop by, but time was getting tight so we decided to head off as the “Spectator Safety” car came round again telling people to keep back (while the marshals didn’t do a lot!), and some photographer decided that he’d cut down about half a tree to get his shot rather than move. And then we saw that there were some big guns coming through so we headed back, and had Atkinson (mega-loud, and VERY close to a tree on the inside), Solberg, Pons, Hirvonen, Gronholm, Sordo and Loeb come by, but we had to head off to get the car ready for scrutineering, so off we went, and I fitted the WRC tracker (which again has been some cause of trouble as it’s basically knackered, with every component looking like it’s on its last legs), new steering wheel (lovely suede OMP number), and all the little things that I’d forgotten to do before scrutineering. And that took 2 hours, by which time I was a little worse for wear, and getting very worried about noise test (despite hearing the HUGE amount of noise that Atkinson et al put out), but it passed easily. On to scrutineering having picked Paul up, and in we went, weighing in at 982Kg, and then into actually being scrutineered, where the engine and chassis were sealed with FIA tags so we can’t change into our identical car or rebuild the engine…. probably not an option for us – building one car has been difficult enough, let alone two!

Scrutineering went fine, with no problems, which is nice, and meant I could relax a bit; I also found out that you don’t need a logbook for an international event (I found this out as I apologised for leaving it back in service and was told it was unneccesary). Handy. And back to service, we set up the EZ-UP tent, and then thought better of it after a short time as it was just a bit breezy and it was already showing signs of wanting to become airborne, so it went back in the van, along with everything else. All the other little things got done – nav lamp 2, cable ties for intercom wiring, just all sorts of little bits and pieces that you forget until it’s nearly too late. The WRC tracker of woe was checked and works fine, and everything else seems to too. So we all came back to the house, ready for the ceremonial start tonight, having been texted our start times by rally control, and knowing that we need to be there 45 minutes before the start to avoid a ?500 fine. However, I fancy getting down there a bit early and watching what’s going on tonight, so I’ll be setting out in a bit to see what’s what. And to leave a bit of time spare in case there are …. issues.

Fortunately there were no issues tonight getting to the ceremonial start, aside from the fact that it was a 50k drive on a motorway which isn’t that great in the rally car, and I missed the turning for the entrance meaning a long lap round the civic centre meaning I missed the start with Loeb crossing the line and loads of fireworks, but as it turns out I’d have missed them anyway as I was parked at the back of a massive queue of rally cars, obviously! I got out and had a wonder around, and felt privileged to be in the “elite” area where only marshals and competitors were allowed – all the spectators were on either side of the area where the cars were, with a ramp set up at the other end where the interviews, etc., were being held as people ‘started’ the event (although this isn’t the real start). Most people were already there, but some turned up later, including a kangaroo-hopping Puma which didn’t make it to the ramp, and quite a few cars in the 100s. And then the Land Rovers turned up. Now, if you’ve not been following this, let’s just look at some of the specs: The Land Rovers have 250-odd horsepower, 12 inches of ground clearance and 4WD. I have maybe 80HP, 4″ of clearance and 2WD. And yet they are running behind me on the road. Normally I wouldn’t bitch about things as an event is happening, but as I’ve already said previously, this will mean that much of my attention will be behind me rather than in front, and this will not only wreck the event for me, but also is unsafe, in my opinion. This coupled with the fact that the first one’s driver says he “doesn’t give a s***”, and that they aren’t their cars, and that they have also “had to nudge” people who’ve been in front of them before has left me in no doubt that this is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever encountered while rallying. If there isn’t a sufficient gap to ensure that I don’t meet them on stage, then there’s a problem – in my opinion they should either be seeded in with the main field according to their stage times or not run anywhere near the rest of the field. I have mentioned this to the CLOs, who both took my points seriously, and I hope that this won’t be the case, so I’ll leave that there.

I spent a fair bit of time talking to people about the “?40 car”, Skodas in general and so on, and also took the time to have some people in the car to have their pictures taken – some I did know, some I didn’t, and enjoy a bit of attention before queueing up for the start ramp, and getting out and having our pictures taken, and even a short interview.

And then we drove off the ramp, and I was really, really pleased to see people wishing us good luck, etc. – I’d also like to thank everyone who commented that they read this blog – it means a lot, and in fact is the reason why I’m up typing this up instead of in bed when I should be, so I will have to keep this shorter than I would normally, and I’ll post pictures for this later on.

Next it was back to service (another long drive on the M4 made shorter via the joy of iPod), to find a much fuller service area with a fair bit of activity, and then back to the house. Tomorrow it starts for real, and hopefully the car will keep going.

Some bad things have happened today, some good things too – the twins have turned up ready for servicing, which is great. The car behaved itself and seems to go OK once it’s properly warmed up. Hopefully it’ll all go OK tomorrow, but I’ll know in 20 hours or so, I guess.

Before it does start, I’d just like to say one thing, a massive thank-you to someone. My Mum. Without her I wouldn’t be doing this. I know everyone says stuff like this, but in this case it really is true. Whenever I’ve phoned from work with something to be bought or sorted out, she’s done it. Whenever I’ve needed encouragement she’s given it, and she’s done many things on the car too – indeed she’s helped fit gearboxes and even the engine into the current car. Which is quite something for a woman who’s having her 70th birthday next March. So, thanks Mum. I hope it all pays off!

One final request – if anyone takes any pics of the car on stage, please mail them to djaychela@hotmail.com and put something like “stage 4 pics” in the title, if you’re happy for me to post them here with an acknowledgement.

WRGB 2007 Day 3 – Recce Day 2

Today’s schedule was a bit more demanding – first up, there was the only “new” stage of the event, Trawscoed (or “Trousers” in Paul-speak), which was run in reverse to last year’s stage, meaning a totally new set of notes was needed. The stage is around 40 miles away from where we’re staying, and opens at 7:30, meaning a 6:30 (or so) start to get there – when we arrived at 7:45, there was a reasonable queue, but we got going fairly quickly and made a full set of notes – the stage is around 30km long, and this meant around 25 pages of notes for us; the biggest contrast to last year’s notes was that I now call out more corners than before – whereas last year I might call something as 300, I may now say 100 1L 200 or similar, giving more information, but meaning more writing for Paul. The stage itself was strangely familiar (in the same way when you find part of a route you’ve driven before and realise where you are), but more than anything else, slippy. With a capital S! Make no mistake, there will be shenanigans on Sunday for whoever is still running – if the rain that’s been there all day keeps up until then, it will be as slick as hell, especially on the second run. Our second run was taken at higher speed, which went reasonably well – nothing too bad was wrong, just some re-calling of corners, mostly due to taking them slowly first time round because of traffic on the stage.

Next up, Brechfa, with an opportunity for a quick pic in the same place as last year….

The stage is a re-run of last year, but still a long stage, but one run was OK, taken at reasonable speed (and things must have improved since last year as I’ve had to be careful of the speed limit on most of the stages, whereas last year it was only on the long tarmac run on Epynt that it was a problem). This is a great stage, but again mega-slippy in places, and once more if we’re running on Sunday then we’ll have to be careful or it can get very messy very quickly. After seeing this and how the Loebs and Gronholms of this world go through there (and indeed most of the field), respect is due – I think this is one of the things that the TV coverage just doesn’t get across any more, especially as WRC cars look so “tame” – they don’t get out of shape despite going at amazing speed.

Now there was a long run to the two ‘Army’ stages – Epynt and Halfway, and after last year’s problems on recce (where someone had a problem after meeting Mikko Hirvonen coming the other way on the wrong side of the road) I was taking it very easy when going through the villages, and good job too – several of the top crews were coming round corners taking a couple of feet off of our side of the road, which could have been “interesting”. Anyway, we got to Epynt eventually (having run there with a couple of others who are way up the order), and set off round Epynt, which is quite an interesting stage as it combines fast, smooth gravel with a long tarmac road (where even we will hit 80+) and then a really twisty, hard, rocky section where a mistake could really cause trouble and the bottom of the car takes a lot of damage. The notes through this section weren’t quite right, so we re-ran it, and found out that…. they still weren’t right – odd as it went OK last year, but we’ve marked the dodgy bit and it can be done visually so it should be OK – the rest of the stage is fine. On, then, to Halfway, a stage that I loved last year, despite having 2 wheel changes AND bending the steering rack meaning the car was a nightmare to drive afterwards. And once more it didn’t disappoint – there were some minor changes to be made (more detail added and a few things removed), and again this is a stage of great contrasts – the gravel section then turns to a really ‘cresty’ section where an error will result in the rally being over (there are large rocks on the insides and outsides, so care is a pre-requisite), and then to a faster, more open section where a quick car would be fantastic, but any error would be punished severely. There was a small error, and I loved the stage, so we re-ran that as well, and didn’t quite fix the error, but it’s in a “visual” place, so no problems there. A great experience, Halfway, and I hope that the extra detail and cautions on the surface changes will mean we can get through without problems.

On, then, to Cardiff, which is an hour’s drive from Halfway, and we were reasonably up on our schedule, so we took the time to get a proper lunch (albeit late) and then to do the Millennium Stadium stage. Although this is the same as last year and indoors, I wanted to do it again but it did mean an hour’s queue to run it, with the Felicia sat amongst all the “proper” recce cars.

It was worth the wait – it turns out the layout isn’t identical (the position of the blocks is slightly different), but also the surface was wet so it was good to get an idea of the grip that’s there; last year we were all squeals, whereas this year it just slid nicely and quietly. We ran with an Evo on each run (two cars went together on each run, and you got to do your second run straight after the first), and although we clearly couldn’t have kept up, we didn’t get totally lost, and second time through Paul timed it and we did a fair job, which is good. Plus I made a promise to the two women who were marshalling the stage start that I’d see them on Saturday, so I hope not to break that promise as then we’d still be doing….

While in Cardiff, Paul went to the newsagent to get a copy of Motorsports News, to see the supplement with the paper on WRGB. And we’re featured in it – mostly because of the cheapness of R477 KRU, reason being that I paid ?40 for the car, and MN found out that a single nut (track rod end nut) from Marcus Gronholm’s car is the same price. James mailed me about this the other day and it gave me much pleasure to put things in that kind of context. It was also really nice to see some of my comments in print, and hopefully people who see us on the stages will have read some of this and take it into account when they see a “slow” Skoda after seeing the WRCs fly through the stages; after all, the entire car cost less than a front-running car’s tyre budget for this event – the build was under ?3,000, and a WRC is ?500,000. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I could do the same in a WRC car, clearly, but I could certainly go faster than I do at present, particularly if I wasn’t thinking “if I stuff this, it’ll take me a year’s work to fix it”. Ho hum!

Finally in Cardiff was administrative checks, which is just paperwork sort of stuff. Last year this worried me, but this year not at all – oddly there is less checking done here than at a club-level rally; proof of insurance wasn’t even asked for which amazes me, particularly as I’d had the pleasure of getting my cover extended by Jayne Auden to cover me, and she’d even emailed me the cover note! Never mind, at least I’m captain legal!

So, that’s most of the preparation done – the stages are all recce’d and noted, the recce car has some massive dents in the floor and the exhaust vibrates like a harley davidson where it rubs on the sumpguard and has about 3 kg of Welsh mud on it. The bar that holds the guard on is bent like a banana, but should be straight (the red line on the photo).

The wheels have an interesting “growth” of dried mud on.

Tomorrow, hopefully scrutineering will go OK, but first up, we’re going to go to shakedown and see how the pros do it. Should be interesting!

Today was the first day of recce – if you don’t know, that means driving the stages before the event, at “non-competetive” speeds and making notes of the stage turns and details so you can drive through them a lot faster, accurately and safely than if you were trying to do so without having pre-knowledge of them. Most rallies in the UK have pace notes provided by the organisers, but Rally GB has two days of “recce” where each driver gets to make their own notes. This has to be done in standard-looking cars (although some of the top boys are in essentially rally cars with full cages, etc), and many use hire cars – we saw several standard-looking cars today, and in my case it’s using my standard Felicia, just fitted with a sumpguard and a bit of protection for the brake and fuel pipes underneath, and some forest tyres fitted to it. Most people’s recce cars are worth more than my rally car cost (probably 3-4 times as much), so maybe that puts everything in perspective – if I had an Evo 9, I’d love to run it down the tracks, but I’d be gutted if it got as dented as the Fel did last year…

This year, the stages are mostly the same as last year – only Trawscoed is significantly different from last year (run in reverse) so this means that we needed to “refine” rather than start from scratch, which is a big bonus. Oddly the stages were split between “local” and Crychan, meaning a 40-mile drive for the second recce, but we got to the first stage just before it opened and found the usual queue, and surprisingly a comment of “well, you made it this far” from Mr. Kellitt…. Once we started up, two things became apparent – firstly that it’s a LOT more slippery than last year, and secondly the notes really didn’t need much work – Rheola was first to be done, and was just a case of adding in bits that had changed a little and getting the corners more accurate. After Paul’s constant complaints about the “descriptive” notes, we’ve changed to numbers (1 fastest, 6 slowest), which has meant he had to re-write all the notes, and a few got changed in the process or we’d messed up, but mostly it went OK, and well enough to mean we wouldn’t do the second run – it was quite tight and we’d also thought that being really tired for tomorrow would be a bad idea – reason being that driving the stage and calling every corner out is quite tiring mentally. One dodgy thing happened – we were in a bit of a “queue” of cars (I think the person about 6 in front was doing it for the first time judging by everyone else’s speed and that we were keeping up) and the idiot in car 64 pushed his way past us and everyone else, without so much as a second’s wait. Lovely. Anyway, we went off to Crychan, and it was much the same story there, only needing one run.

Next up was Resolven, which according to the books had changed quite significantly since last year, adding a section beforehand. The two year’s maps said otherwise, and so did our memory, and it was really a case of two distances and one corner, then back on the old notes. Lovely – ahead of schedule by a great deal, and an easy day ahead, hopefully.

Last up – Port Talbot, which was the first stage we recce’d last year, and therefore the first one ever. And it showed – the distances were crazily wrong for most of it, and several sections were just rubbish, frankly, so we needed to take a second run at it and totally replace the first section and modify a few other bits – not ideal for the first stage of the event, but I think the second run was OK, so it should be fine.

By this time, it was about 2:50, so we’d done well – if we’d done every stage twice we’d have missed the second run on Port Talbot and therefore had all sorts of trouble, so it’s all good. Apart from hitting a massive rock which dented the floor and sumpguard mounting and knocked my feet clear off the pedals, it all went OK, and the little Skoda has done OK. Paul’s been using Memory Map to record our progress on the stages, so we can see where we’ve been and also the speed at any point – interestingly it’s nearly been fast enough to finish the event on schedule, and Paul said it’s a pity we can’t use the recce car on the event as “at least it would finish”. Hopefully R477 will prove us doubters both wrong and keep it all together, but there’s always something, isn’t there?

Here’s the recce car, after a hard day’s work…