Skoda Rally Blog

So, with yesterday out of the way, it was time for the forest stages, which are the main event, really, on the Sunseeker. After we’d finished and got back last night it turned out that the stage had a second stoppage with a nasty accident on the seafront, with the crew thankfully largely OK, but leading to the cancellation of Stages 1 & 2 for those who hadn’t run it (they all get nominal times, so they were mostly on equal times for the start of day 2).

Went to Canford Arena about 8:30, got the car ready with new forest tyres and the lamp pod off, and checked everything over, and went to chat to a few people we’ve met on various events, but soon enough it was time to get in the car and head off. And as soon as we got going there was a knocking noise – sounded like the wheel was a bit buckled, but it wasn’t bad (it must have been on a rear before), and it soon stopped once we got going and on the road section, which was only short to the first stage of the day, Stage 3, which is on Uddens.

This may be short, but it’s a great stage – the first part is fairly simple but the tracks are really high quality. The middle is a bit muddy and rough, but then the end is a flat-out thrash. And I felt it was an opportunity to give it a good go straight from the off. The first proper corner I got exactly right – the back of the car was a bit out of line, and we got through nice and quick, and took this same speed into the next set of corners, which all went well – I think we may even have looked good at one point – until the tight square left after a bridge, where we got stuck a couple of years ago. Got round that OK (if not mega-quick), and then into the muddier, rough section. The car still felt good here, and then a couple of narrow posts to go through (which I always take a bit easy as it would be such a stupid place to end things), but it went well. Made a mess of the last tight corner (again through posts), but the rest went well, particularly the last long section – the new box worked really well, the ratios meaning it was pulling all the way. The end result? A 3:44.1, a full 0.7 seconds faster than Barrie in the Proton. THIS was what we wanted – some tight times and having a proper battle.

Off we went on the road section and saw a stricken Evo by the side of the road. Got to the next stage (Ringwood South) with a couple of minutes to spare, and all was feeling good.

Off we went, again the gearbox making things a pleasure. It was a bit loose (felt like one of the rears was a bit low on pressure), but nothing serious to worry about. Got to a point where there’s a set of posts in the ground (which I used to be scared of, originally!) and into a square right, and heard a noise like a wheel bearing going. I thought we’d keep going, and changed into third to power out of the corner and…

Nothing.

No drive at all. The gear lever wouldn’t move, the car was just coasting, and we pulled over to the side of the road. I said “Gearbox”, and that was about it. Got out, and had a quick look to see if it was something like the selector lever having been jammed in neutral by a stone. I wasn’t prepared for what I saw:

The diff had exploded. Obviously this was why we had no drive, but it also meant game over for this year. The reality of it hit me, and I was gutted. The last few other competitors came past soon enough, but then it really hits you – you’re out. All the work you’ve put in means nothing, and nothing is going to get you any further competitively. It’s over. And so damn soon. Didn’t even get to do Ararat or Somerley. The car was just getting going. As were we.

After a while, the (very nice) recovery crew came to take us to the stage exit, which was done smoothly enough (although odd as I kept steering as we went, with the wheels off the ground, silly boy), and we left the car there and had to get a lift (yes, from my Mum!) back to get the trailer, etc. In all, 3 hours later, everything is packed up at Service and all put away here, the car is back here and I’m sat in my living room. The repair bill will probably be about £1000 (a new diff is £650+VAT, and hopefully the gear kit is not totally destroyed), but I’ll need to find the source of the problem – did the diff just explode, or did something else kill it? Anyway, all that will be found eventually, and I’ll decide what I’m going to do.

Retiring from Rallies is a part of motorsport – no matter what you do, something can go wrong. We’ve only ever retired due to mechanical failure, and this was a freak occurrence – it wasn’t something I could have predicted (it was all working perfectly until 100 yards before it died), so I guess that’s the only positive I can take from it. Paul is, of course, his usual optomistic self, saying that it could have been much worse – we could have rolled the car 3 times or hit a tree, and that’s true, but right now I feel beaten up over it, and can’t face the idea of spending that much more money on the car, but the problem is once you’ve used a car with such a setup (close ratio box and LSD) then going back just isn’t an option – it really transforms the car completely. The crappy thing is that at the moment I keep thinking “we should be doing Stage X” – tomorrow it won’t seem so bad but right now it’s galling, especially given the perfect conditions today.

The Sunseeker traditionally starts with a pair of “spectator stages”, in this case run through the Lower Gardens in Bournemouth, and then along the undercliff drive to Boscombe pier. This is only 1.6 miles, and is run twice, in reverse seeding order with the second run ‘interleaving’ between the first-run crews who are doing the stage for the first time, at 30-second intervals, meaning the spectators have something increasingly quick and good to watch, rather than having a quick car and it being all downhill from there.

This leaves us with the unusual situation of being nearly first on the road (we’ve been first before), which leaves Paul on his toes as there are not many people in front to follow, although this year there were some crews in front of us (Military Land Rovers and one other car), so we weren’t first on the road. The route to town is always a bit frustrating as it takes two of the most traffic-filled roads on a Friday night, so it’s always a bit “will we, won’t we?” to see if we’ll be there on time. Fortunately we were there on time, and had a bit of time to get out of the car, check tyre pressures and say hello to a few people. I also managed to get my helmet stuck in the back of the car (with it on!) as I was setting the camera running. Quite embarrasing, but all done OK. Then, the stage itself.

If you don’t know Bournemouth Gardens, it’s has a wide footpath with small metal railings on either side. Lots of people call the stage “Mickey Mouse”, but it’s somewhere that you could get it properly wrong, as it’s quite tight in places, but also with a good run down to the first bend proper, and I decided I wanted to go under 2 minutes on both runs this year, so I gave it some down to the first corner, and when I braked there was a moment where I thought we wouldn’t stop in time as the pads weren’t warmed up properly, but we made it OK, and then to a left/right chicane and under the pier approach (which is always slippy due to the surface and the sand) and then onto the seafront. It’s nearly a mile to go there, but with some bends (as part of the road) and three chicanes to negotiate. Last year they were very tight, and I nearly hit one, this year they weren’t as tight, but of course you only know that after the event (and hope they’re still the same when you come through again). The car ran well, and was into top gear towards the braking zones for the chicanes – geared perfectly for this. We got to the end and I was pleased that (a) Paul thought it went well, and (b) We’d done it in 1:57.8 – Nice.

Back round for Stage 2, this time queueing in a different place, we were told our arrival time was wrong by a somewhat misinformed marshal (who thought it wasn’t possible for two cars to be arriving in the same minute – reason being we’d gone in 1:57 and the car in front had done 2:06), but fortunately Paul knows what he wants, which is always good.

We then went towards the stage queue, and found the stage had been stopped. It was really warm down there tonight (relatively speaking – usually it’s bitterly cold) so we had time to get out and talk to a few people who we knew; it was probably a 15-minute delay while the stricken car (a Land Rover, apparently) was removed and the stage re-started. We slotted into the queue with the first runner in front of us being Geoff Bennett in his Warrior-powered Mark 2. We’d seen a few cars go off the line as we waited, and none of them really took off. Geoff changed all that – it was amazing watching how his car just hooked up and flew off. It’s no surprise that at the time I got home he was leading on SS1 – he did it in 20 seconds less than us, and I’d think it’ll take a properly quick car and driver to catch him there.

So we were up, just 30 seconds later. The lights went green, and away we went. I’d been trying to warm the brakes on the way round to SS2 but of course all that heat would have gone during the delay so I took it a little cautiously into the first turn, and got it just right in fact, and the rest of the stage went OK. There was a moment in the first chicane on the seafront when I outbraked myself on the way in and then missed a gear on the way out, but it went well overall, and the result was a slightly quicker time, a 1:56.4. Overall, not a bad job – mission accomplished, I think.

We then had to get back to service in 27 minutes, which sounds easy, but given slow Friday night traffic and a slightly long route, it left little time to get fuel (which we needed – we’re going to try to run minimum fuel at all times this year), but we just about managed it, got back to the control with a minute or so to spare, and when we booked in got a results sheet to show 3 cars were behind us at the moment, a right result for me. As I write this there are 4 cars behind us (a Subaru had a bit of a mare on SS2), which is unusual.

So, tomorrow is the “real deal”, with 11 forest stages. Our start time is around 9:30, so we’ll have to go and get the car ready, changing wheels and so on, but it’s looking like a good weekend, or a good start anyway!

This week has gone very smoothly – I’ve been driving the car as much as possible, as whenever you’ve done something major no matter how much care you think you’ve taken, something can come loose or something unexpected can arise. But that hasn’t happened – the car hasn’t missed a beat, which is great, and this sense of calm meant that I almost didn’t feel as if the event was taking place – so often in the past the week before the rally has been fraught (especially as it’s usually in half-term, so I’m usually off and doing the car that week), but not so this year – an unusual situation in itself, but one compounded by our scrutineering time being later than usual at midday.

We loaded up my car (which is acting as service vehicle) and headed off to Canford Arena, where service is for the weekend. There was some disarray there (we weren’t on the service area plan!) leading to a delay before we could get set up. I say set up, I mean “get a tarpaulin out and put some wheels down to stop it flying away, and then sticker the car up. Time was tight, but fortunately the stickers have all got smaller this year (credit crunch?) so they went on easy enough, even more so as there was little wind there – Canford Arena is quite exposed and there’s usually a fair bit of wind down there, but it was still and sunny. Noise test was passed easily (93 dB, a full 7dB under the limit) and then we headed off to the Littledown Centre for scrutineering.

As anyone who’s read this before will know, Scrutineering is my least favourite part of rallying. I’ve never failed it and always check the car before the event, but it’s the last point at which an oversight could stop you competing, and I’m always nervous. However, scrutineering at the Sunseeker is made into a bit of an event (with the Littledown sports centre being used for it, and the public coming to see the cars be scrutineered and rally radio being broadcast from there). There was no need to worry, we passed OK (although needed to cover the battery + terminal as the cover had got lost), and then parked my car up outside, next to Marcus Dodd’s Accent WRC – a nice bookend of the field, but one I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of as I’d been collared by Robin Bradford to be interviewed for the Bournemouth University Rally DVD project, so I spent about 10 minutes being interviewed about starting rallying, doing Rally GB and so on, and hopefully gave them something to actually use rather than a bunch of gibberish!

Then we needed to do documentation, which is usually straightforward (and even bag us a couple of chocolates, nice people that they are), and then had to wait around for another interview, this time with Alan for the Rallye Sunseeker podcast. Spoke to Barrie Purrett (#76 in his Proton) who said he has a very noisy front wheel bearing. Hopefully he can get it replaced or it won’t fail as that would be a real pity, he’s a top bloke and someone whose times I’d aspire to.

The waiting for the interview was made much more pleasant firstly by seeing Murray Walker (who is tiny) and Louise Goodman (who is a lot thinner in person than on TV), and some rather interestingly-clad women  who were wearing “Turbo Dynamics” skin-tight blue and white suits. They seemed to be attracting a LOT of interest from the many photographers who were there (one of whom we caught taking a picture of her bum!), but then I guess that’s why they were there!

The interview with Alan was fun, covering similar stuff to the previous one, and this time Paul got asked a few things (which he wasn’t too keen on as he thought he’d get asked something techinical!) and then off we went, home. By now my back was pretty sore, so I need to do some ice treatment and make sure I don’t do anything stupid. This isn’t helped by the fact that I managed to rip the rear mudflap off when leaving this morning (thankfully it was still there when I got back), so I have to fit that…. aside from that we’re ready to go – we will be setting off from MC1 around 18:35, so we’ll be down there from about 17:30. First car is arriving at the gardens around 19:00, so we’ll probably be on the start line for 19:05. Nice.