Skoda Rally Blog

After the trials and tribulations of getting the car just in a running, driveable condition, I was certain that something would let me down. Totally underprepared. Maybe my ideas of what should be done to the car before the event have changed, but I’m sure this was the least prepared I’ve ever been – a real skin of the teeth job. But we got to the Tempest, and to my immense surprise, all my work paid off as it scrutineered without even a minor mention of a problem. This pleased me greatly, and we even had over an hour to wander about, and notice how rutted the arena stage was already getting. Before we’d run it once, let alone three times…….

After patching in a temporary intercom (the last thing I had to fix, and of course it was totally broken), and putting on some new stickers (from alink2.com), we trotted off to the start. And found out almost instantly that the Yokohama tyres on the car were useless. No grip at all at the front, just understeering hideously round the first couple of corners, and through the ruts which were already bad. Had a few weird calls (later found out Paul was reading SS1 from the international rather than SS6 which we were starting on), but it was OK. We’d done the first stage, albeit slowly (quite a few didn’t make it under the target time), and off we trotted to SS2, which was a new one I hadn’t done last year. A quick check of the car beforehand showed nothing loose yet, so we lined up and then were off. This was quite a different kettle of fish, and a bit like my first forest event, ‘cos the car was just yawing from side to side at speed, but it wasn’t horrible as it was still dry. Later on there were a couple of times I understeered off the track, but with nothing serious to hit, fortunately.

A slow road section (courtesy of some guy doing 32 mph in a 60 zone) wasn’t punished as there was a delay on stage 3 – someone had gone off and hit a tree, and apparently there was no OK/SOS board out. A quick stretch of the legs, and then off we went. Now this (Yately 1) was the first stage that I liked the look of – reasonably smooth tracks, and wide in places, and good calling meant we could get going, until I changed gear about half way through, and the gear level just moved about aimlessly. We were in neutral, coasting, and I couldn’t get any drive. Straight away I thought that the bolt holding the gear linkage steady to the box had broken (this turned out to be right), but I kept trying to find a gear and eventually found 3rd. We trundled on for a bit, and then I found that I could also get 1st with some jiggery-pokery. And it was needed as there were some tight sections. But we made it through, and the road section wasn’t too bad, but it was off to Warren. Last year Warren scared me a bit as the car was wondering all over the place, but it was good at the same time. We took most of the stage in third, and this was actually beneficial as it meant I had to take some corners a little faster, and it was OK – a learning experience. Another plus was that there is an 1100 yard straight on it, which meant we could keep our average speed up, which would be needed as the course closing car was getting close to us at the end (although they would have to wait up to 15 minutes for us, in fact). Did the stage in 11 minutes, which wasn’t the end of the world, although I wish there was some way for the spectators to know that we’re not that slow normally!

Into service, I started working on the car, and the twins – Ant and Chris – who were servicing for Gary Hayter – came over and Ant went into action, getting the guard off (with the help of another guy servicing next to us who I didn’t know), and trying to get the sheared bolt off. It wouldn’t come out, so the linkage just had to be cable-tied in place – it’s only side to side location, so we hoped it would hold. In the end it was done with 4 minutes to spare. Cracking stuff.

The next stages were more of the same – rutty arena, and some other stages that were a long drive away but well worth it. A few slidy bits, but mostly just working on driving a bit quicker, which seemed to be getting there. The next service was a total contrast – nothing to do on the car, just pack our gear up ready for when/if we finished!

The last three stages were a real contrast. By this time the Arena stage was terrible – the ruts were beyond a joke, and a real car destroyer. Took it slowly rather than break the car for no real gain, and then it was off to Yately 2 and Warren 2. These were my favourite stages of the whole rally. A real chance to drive the car properly, get it sliding about a bit, and have some fun. I’m never going to be Tommi Makinen, but I’m definitely getting better, ‘cos I really enjoyed these two. If I’d set up the spotlights properly they would have been even more fun, but there you go – getting the car going was an achievement in itself, but it finishing the Tempest with just one broken bolt (and a bit of noise from under the car after the rough end of Warren 2) wasn’t bad going at all. Got quite a few things to do to the car before the Sunseeker, but at least I have 3 months to do them in.

Well, this was a bit of a strange one. Firstly, the event was moved from the relative nearness of Newton Abbot to Newquay, which is around 160 miles away from my house. Which means about a 4 hour drive, and in the gas-guzzling beast that is the diesel pajero, about ?110 of fuel. Oh dear. That, and hiring a trailer means that it’d cost me ?200 just to turn up. Add in ?300 entry fee, and ?88 to stay at Hendra holiday camp, and ?50 of fuel, and suddenly it’s not such a cheap weekend. We will not speak of this again…..

So, got to Hendra pretty quickly (3h 27m), and it was a lovely day. Paul was off in Hong Kong, doing passport things, so that meant I needed a nav, as mentioned before. So I met Chris for the second time ever at Hendra, and then off we trotted to scrutineering, which went well – we managed to get done before it had even officially opened, and documentation too. So we were all set. An evening out in the normally rammed Newquay was odd enough, as it was like a ghost town, and I got the biggest mixed grill I’ve ever seen (seriously – I didn’t eat the next day!), and then off to bed. We got to the start a little early (well, 1h 45m early!), and stood around while everyone else turned up, and indeed left – we were near the back, and most of the field had already gone before we even needed to start the car up.

We’d seen one of the BMWs come back after going, and then head left, then right, then zoom off again, and wondered why. Turned out it was ‘cos there was a bit of confusion over the tulips, although really it was just our rally nerves – if you read the distance between one instruction and the next, it’s pretty obvious where you have to go. By this time it was raining heavily, so stage one was a bit slippy, and not too fast. SS2 was a rerun, and I went a bit quicker, although the vagueness of the maps made it hard for Chris to call, but we got to the end OK, despite seeing an impreza already out (and slowing so as not to hit him!). SS3 and SS4 were just over the way, and a bit more tricky – the first part was OK, but there was a run at the end over some black, loamy soil, and two cars had already fallen victim there, maybe one in sympathy of the other. It was quite slippy, but really not too bad – the stages were as smooth as promised, and with some confidence (lacking, for sure) would have been quick & fun. SS5 went OK, and then a long run down to SS6 and SS7 – a 30 mile road section in the pouring rain. These stages were tough – the calling was hard, but the ground harder – like a volcanic landscape. Really tough on the tyres, etc, and we got caught both times. The end featured a long straight and flying finish, and then a 90 left almost straight after. First time I said “you’d have to be brave/mental to do that flat out”, and second time the 205 that just passed us showed I was right! He was in the bushes having not made it round the corner, but he did it OK. Worth seeing, that.

Then, service, a full hour to wonder around and check out what others were up to. Steve Colville’s new car (clio with R5 turbo engine) had a problem – the steering column had come un-welded leaving him with “a bit of play” in the steering! Thanks to Ant Wilmo’s service crew, that was welded up ASAP, and off he went, as did we. Here’s his car…..

SS8 was tough, particularly as we had driven past another car that had gone off without seeing them – this was the cause of some concern for us, but thankfully the crew were OK after being checked over in the hospital. It sounds unbelievable, but even second time past it was hard to see where the car was.

Then things got better from SS10 onwards. The sun came out, and the drying stages meant that at long bloody last I could drive again and get a bit of confidence. Things got better as we went on, and I really started enjoying it, and even had a few sideways moments (one in front of a cameraman).

The last service of the day (well, I say service, basically we didn’t do anything as we filled the car up in the morning and left it all day!) preceded the two last stages which were dark enough to need lights on. Saw the crew from the BDCC who were manning this stage (as they were on SS1 and 2), and went better, it would seem. The last stage of the day was a half-rerun of one of the earlier ones, and meant we got a good run at it. We’d been told the finish was slippy, but it wasn’t bad at all, and overall had a good time. Chris seemed to be converted to doing forest events in the future, so that’s a plus too. Now onto the Tempest……

This weekend was to be a 2-day event, the Newton Abbot Audi Stages 2005. However, in its infinite wisdom, last weekend NATO denied access to one of the bases that the tarmac stages on the Sunday were to be based on, so it’s been revised quite a lot, and now it’s a one-day all-forest event, with more mileage instead. Because of this hiccup, not a lot of information has been sent so far – basically it looks like we’ll get everything else when we turn up on Friday. Despite the name, it’s not based in Newton Abbot, it’s based in Newquay, so it’s a long way away. Trailering the car will take about 4 thousand years, and I’ve also spied a new rally car that I’m interested in which means I need to come back on Saturday night, so I can go see it on Sunday. Busy weekend again…….. And possibly the last outing in G241 JCY?

I guess that sometimes you think things aren’t meant to be. Last year’s trip to Caerwent was a simple affair – drive there, drive around a bit, see lots of people crash or blow their cars up, go home. However, this year’s attempts seemed harder. Lots harder. The first event in March ended up with a pulled entry due to loss of Navigator, and the second entry involved driving all of a mile and then death of car. So, despite me having done lots of road mileage and the Tempest Rallysprint, and trailering the car to the event, I was still very nervous. Not about the driving per se, but whether or not the car would pack up, embarrass me further, and mean I’d have to kill myself.

So, after a rather later night than I would have wanted (thanks Juliet!), it was time to go back to Caerwent. We got there late enough to have to park in the smaller service area, but got everything set up, the car ready, and went to the drivers’ briefing. I mention this only because it was a chance to pay our respects to Michael Park, following his tragic death a week before on the Wales Rally GB. A minute’s silence is something I’ve often observed, but it seemed particularly poignant at this event.

Off we went to stage one, and the first thing is that the scale of the maps at Caerwent means that a lot of the detail is…. er…. missing! You get an idea of where you’re going, etc, but you really need to know the place to be able to be quick right out of the box. And we were anything but. It wasn’t because of Paul, it was because there was NO GRIP WHATSOEVER! The car was all over the place – the tarmac was really slippy in places, and others OK, but there seemed to be little way of telling until you slid off the road. Had quite a few minor moments, but fortunately didn’t hit anything nasty, just the odd kerb or two, but not in a bad way. Made some notes of dodgy areas (basically the entire map!), and changed to the wets that I’d brought – although it wasn’t that wet, I thought they’d grip a bit better. And I was right – much, much better, although me missing a junction and going straight on lost us probably 30 seconds, and we ended up with a similar time to the first time out, alas.

The next few stages were a right mixture – dry, then torrential rain, and then getting progressively dryer. More and more cars went out, victims of kerbs, over-exuberance (in the case of the ex-Steve Colville Swift), or just plain bad luck (Glen Williams’ broken engine mounts leading to a stripped cambelt). There were around 100 starters, originally, and as the day went on, we moved closer to the front, although by virtue of the demise of others, I’m sad to say. Probably my worst performance as a driver as I really was lacking confidence – both in the car and in myself after the first stage. But we kept going, and went back onto dry tyres, which was the right choice until the last minutes of the stage when it rained again and it got slippy. But we stuck with the tyres and things got better for stage 6, and finally on stage 7 I got my act together and got things close to right – braking harder and later, and not screwing up in the twisty bits.

I must say I’d heard lots about “the Quarry” at Caerwent. And with good reason. It’s a really tight section, with very little visibility ahead – you have to rely on knowledge and trust your co-driver, and if you got it wrong in there it would be very messy indeed with a big kerb and buildings on the left, and a rock face on the right. But it is excellent – it really is. I’m sure I was at a snail’s pace compared to nearly everyone else, but it felt good! On the last stage, we made up two places, to finish 41st of 46 finishers. So over half the field had broken down (including the ‘big boys’ in the WRC subarus and a 6R4), and we’d beaten larger cars too. No mess, no fuss, just good fun. A long drive home, but well worth it. I’d rather do that than watch Eastenders Omnibus.

And I’ve found a navigator (and a good one too) for Newton Abbot Audi. No idea what he’s going to make of being in the Skoda at impulse speed, but there you go…….

Last time out (proper) was at Caerwent. And as you will know if you read it, it was a bit of a short one – about a mile, and certainly my most annoying and humiliating breakdown (and for the car too!). This weekend, we hope to address that. On Sunday it’s the 2005 Patriot stages, and we’ve got an entry, running at 67 of 92, running in front of quite a few bigger, faster cars. I love Caerwent. I’ve said it till I’m blue in the face, but it really is a great place, like driving round a town rather than the usual SV airfield/cones stuff. Until you’ve driven or navved there I don’t think you can appreciate how cool it is. A-n-y-w-a-y……

We’re all set for Sunday. I’ve driven the car a fair few times on the road, and it’s behaving well; the new MPi engine definitely hasn’t got the top end that the old one did (although it does rev fairly well, to about 6200 rpm), but it’s got a lot more grunt, and it has impeccable manners compared to the old setup – it’ll tickover at 500rpm without complaint, which can’t be bad at all. And it doesn’t mind sitting in long queues either – traffic is not a problem, so that should mean we can just get in and drive. I’ve even changed the slightly worn wheel bearing, so we really should be 100% this weekend. However, I am trailering the car anyway, at immense cost (?75!).

Plans are afoot to build the next Skoda, however. I want to make a new car from a really tidy shell, and fix all the little things about the car that aren’t wrong as such, just things that I’d have done differently. So I’m starting to collect parts. The plan is to use G241JCY until the Tempest, and then keep it until the new car is built; I’d love to get the new car build in time for the Sunseeker, but I know that is quite a tall order, although I’ve got about 3 weeks off at Christmas, so it’s a possibility. But it’s dependent on me getting rid of the Focus I bought the other month, so until that goes I’m stuck. However, I have been looking for parts, and I’ve found some fantastic suspension, New Old Stock, that’s ?600, but it’s all alloy, looks amazing, has roller top bearings and uses Bilstein inserts, and is fully height adjustable, so it could mean a real improvement in the next car’s handling – here’s a pic…

I’m still undecided as to whether to build a Favorit based on a late shell (which if I found a tidy one would be great), or to go for a recent Felicia – I’ve heard differing opinions on which are better, but the merits of using a 5 year old shell are quite persuasive. Either way, I’ll have my work cut out as I’ll need to really strengthen the shell (seam weld it), and also fit things like sill stands and strong jacking points, etc. I plan on the car lasting me 3-4 years of 5 forest events a year, so I want to make sure it’s good and strong.

Anyway, I’m off tomorrow morning as I have scrutineering in Newport at 2:30pm, so that’s basically the whole weekend taken care of. Lovely.

Well, after getting the car ‘running’, I had a few more things to sort out. First up, moving the engine across to a more sensible position and adding a driveshaft spacer has meant that with any luck I won’t be popping any more driveshaft inner CV joints out. There were a few more little things that needed doing, but thankfully most of them were simple, like making the throttle pedal work with the new cable, etc. But amazingly the fast idle works OK, so the car is actually dead easy to start from cold – one ‘false start’ and then it works – no pedal required, just turn the key and away we go.

But there’s something much more exciting! My new wide-band O2 sensor arrived! If you don’t know what this is, it’s a device that goes into the exhaust pipe (near the engine) and allows accurate measurement of the fuel/air mixture that the engine is burning. This is crucial because the engine runs best at around 14.5 kg of air to 1 kg of fuel, and making this measurement by ‘intuitive’ means (i.e. guesswork) like I did with the previous installation is hit-and-miss at best. This allows a totally scientific, accurate tuning of the engine, so we went for a drive for about an hour with Kev in the passenger’s seat, measuring the amount of fuel at given engine speeds and loads, and then re-programming the MegaSquirt as we went. The end result was a reasonably driveable car – it’s not perfect, but it’s driveable, and much better than the old engine in terms of behaving itself, grunt, and fuel consumption. There’s plenty more to do, but it’s a good starting point.

When we got back, we found that the tracking was MILES off, and I mean a very long way. Kwik-Fit wanted ?40 to do the tracking, and I’m not paying that, so we improvised with a couple of lengths of straight metal run on the centre of the wheels to the front of the car, and then measuring between the two – it worked pretty well, and the car drives a lot better now, funnily enough!

RallyDay 2005 – this was the time pressure in getting the car running. I didn’t have any real chance to drive the car apart from the brief test, so I was half expecting the car not to make it to Castle Combe, let alone round the track for 5 laps and then back home again! There was a problem getting it started, but this was traced to the plug on the back of the ECU – plugging it back in made it run like a dream again, and it barely missed a beat on the way there, much to my surprise. There’s a bit of a mis-fire around 3500-4000 rpm, but I think that’s the ignition, as the mixture looks fine there Weird.

And then we hit the traffic – it was really heavy, and at the gate that I was supposed to go in via, we got waved on into more traffic. And the only other entrance wasn’t the right one, but fortunately the guys on the gate weren’t jobsworths, and we got in OK, and parked up, next to Andreas Claridge, who is the only other person in my class in the Tempest Rallysprint next weekend. Had a wonder around and saw a few nice cars – RS200 and Mk.1 RS1600s, and got signed up for the track time.

Had 5 laps on the track, which was good fun – every other car on the track was way quicker, but still had a good time. Tyre pressures were a mile off, so the back was drifting all over the place. Still, I managed to catch up with an RS500 in one of the chicanes (so much so that I needed to brake mid-corner to avoid hitting him!), and keep up with a 6R4 during a long corner – obviously as soon as the throttle came into the equation then he shot off, but for about 10 seconds there was no difference in our distance! Most importantly, got through the time without hitting anything, or blowing up! The car stalled after I came into the pits, but started OK again, which was handy. Parked up, and went for a wander and saw a few people I know, and took some pictures.

And then….. the rain! It was chucking it down, and this really put the mockers on, so after an hour or so (with so sign of a break) I felt it was time to go home, and off I trotted again. The car was (once more) good, and I did some logging to allow a great program called MSTweak3000 to work out a better map for the engine – a really impressive thing this, so I now have a revised map that I can put on the car to see how it goes…..

Well, it started well enough. We got through scrutineering with no problems, got signed up and were ready for Saturday morning. Even managed to get up early, get a good breakfast from the excellent B&B, and get set up in service with time to spare. The car was being a little difficult to start, but nothing that a bit of patience wouldn’t sort out. And off we went! Paul’s first time didn’t really show – he was having no problems getting us about and using the Terratrip, and seemed quite at home.

However, getting to SS1 meant quite a climb, and we were swamped with fog! And I mean swamped – we could see very little in front of the car, and this made it quite difficult. Stage 1 had been decribed variously as being difficult, horrible and dangerous by others we’d met (there’s a big ‘fresh air’ drop on the outside which would be a rally and probably life-ending error), but we got through it, albeit very slowly – we nearly got caught by the car behind. Paul’s timing needed a bit of work, but given that it was his first attempt, and that the conditions were awful, I think he did well. Getting to SS2 involved a little “emergency service” stop, which was a surprise, but we got to the next stage without problems, and then doing that was good – better visibility, less chance of imminent death, and a good run. Next up was the 10-mile SS3 which was OK, but again rose up into an incredibly foggy area. We saw quite a few cars off in various places, some of them unbelievable – half way up trees and so on. And at the end of SS3 (and I mean within 100 feet of the finish) Steve and Fiona Colville had gone off, which fortunately didn’t look nasty. There was a problem on SS4 which meant we had about 30 minutes to wait while they recovered a car that was precariously off the stage and looked like it was going to drop far further. We finally got going on it, but it was under a mile, so over as soon as we’d started!

Back to Butlin’s for the service, which just involved changing the wheels (ourselves!) and taking on some water and food, and then off to the infamous Porlock Toll road. I decided to go with full wets as it was pretty wet everywhere, and the car was handling really nicely on them – really confidence inspiring. We got to the start of the stage, and then off we went. And it wasn’t as slippery as everyone had told us – a bit slick in places, but not the treacherous experience I was thinking was about to happen. But once more when we got to the top of the road, the fog was there, and it was really hard to get any decent speed up – there were places where the pace notes were a little ambiguous, and it was hard to go fast when you can only see 20 metres in front of the car at best. But we got to the end, only to see Jason and Andres from Bournemouth had crashed right at the end. They were OK, with marshals with the car, but their race was run. We looped round back to the start, and this time were only 30 seconds in front of an Evo, number 22. In other words, someone at the pointy end. Now, personally, I can see that it’s difficult to arrange the order of re-run stages so we don’t mingle with each other, but it’s silly not to avoid it as clearly I’m going to be way slower than someone like that, and it’ll just hold up both of us – me from looking in my mirrors and having to pull over, and the guy behind from me being in the way. Not good, and we got caught by two of them, although the last one was only right at the end, and there was nothing I could do about that.

Back to service, for forest tyres again, and more chocolate. And then off to Stage 7, which was a re-run of SS1. The fog had lifted a fair bit now – not completely gone, but enough to make things more fun as you could at least see what was coming up. Paul had really got the hang of things now, and aside from one dodgy moment in tracks near the fresh air drop it was all going well….. And then going round a hairpin near the end of the stage…. BANG! We lost drive almost completely. And then we did – just really bad knocking when I tried to accelerate. I thought one of the driveshafts had broken, so we just managed to get out of the way up the road (handily, as anywhere else on the stage would have been seriously dodgy/dangerous), and I had a look, and lo and behold, the inner CV joint had broken. So that was that! End of event. Which really gutted me as we were just getting going and the weather was getting better. Called in, and then had to sit for a couple of hours while everyone else came past (disadvantage of running near the front!), and then get towed out of stage, seeing a few cars off after us, including an Astra that was right down a ravine near the end. No problem, it had just slid down there, but it looked tight to get out of!

But now we were stranded in the middle of nowhere (well, 8 miles from Minehead, at least), and no way to get back. Paul was just about to phone a taxi when a guy who had been Marshalling came past and asked if we wanted a tow! He hitched us up, and off we went. Soon we were back at service, and a big big BIG thanks to the guy in the silver Focus estate from Burnham-on-Sea Motor Club. Very very much appreciated, that. We parked the car in the service area, and packed up. And went home. Left the car there, and went to get it this morning with a new driveshaft – 25 minutes later it was running again, and driveable. So, not bad in all – Paul seemed to enjoy himself, although I had some dodgy moments in the fog – I guess it’s having total confidence in the pacenotes and your driving ability in such conditions. I haven’t got any confidence in my car control ‘skills’ in such situations, so it was painful in places. But as Paul said “No-one died”. How true!

Today was the B&DCC Rally, which was originally the Three Counties Multi-Venue, but became the Single Venue at Smeatharpe. We entered it as it was still eligible for Championship points for us. There were 10 in our class (class A), and 80 runners in total – we were number 81, being first reserve. It was funny going back to Smeatharpe as it was where my first event was, and it all seemed quite different, as we were obviously a bit more experienced than the first time, and hoping to do better than last time out.

The stage layouts this time took in more of the airfield, as the service area didn’t take up one of the legs of the crossed runways, so we lined up and were ready to go. It was clear, but cold this morning, and it was pretty slippy on the first time out – grip would be there, and then go, and come back again as I braked for the chicanes, which was a little unnerving, as was being eaten alive by a fast RS2000 that was somehow down at number 74, who we met on his second lap, our first. Held on reasonably well in the corners, though, just got eaten on the straights. Second time round I decided to take the fast chicane a little tighter, and BANG! My wing-mirror dissolved in a noisy cloud of bits, and just left the three cables for the adjustment – it looked like a severed limb! The rest of the stage was uneventful, as was SS2, the re-run.

SS3 featured a few tight acute bends, which was hard work, and really meant going down to first to get any kind of speed through there – I was disappointed with the time, but a check of the board showed we were 6th in class, and 63rd of 76 runners, so not all bad. And then SS4 came….

It all started out OK, but on one of the long runs, we just lost power completely – the injection was still firing, but nothing doing. The fuel pump had stopped, and we pulled over and I desperately tried to get it going, but to no avail. We were OTL, and that was that…… Our first retirement. Bugger! We got towed back to the stage start, and had to push the car back to service, which was probably half a mile, which was hard work. Thankfully someone gave us a hand towards the end which was good as we were pooped from that…..

I was worried about getting home more than anything else – I’d driven to the event, and wasn’t expecting this. But I’d brought the old carb, and was ready to rip off the injection and just drive home, when Steve Colville suggested testing the pump… and it worked. Further fault finding found two problems – a relay in the original car fuseboard was dodgy (well, the connector for it was dodgy, so little to be done there to fix that permanently), and one of the relays in the MS relay board was dodgy too – when those two things were fixed, the car started on the button again.

Handily, SS5-8 could be run as a “Trophy Rally”, for those cars that had failed earlier in the day – many people had gone out, but most of them just went home, and I didn’t see the point in that. There were three runners for the Trophy Rally – an Evo 6, a MK.II Escort and us. We would run at the back of the field, and whoever had the fastest times over the 4 stages would win. SS5 was fun again, and SS6 was good too – still with the tight bends, but run the other way, and it was coming together a bit more now – definitely worth it, just for the practice if nothing else! When we were queuing for SS7, we realised that the Evo 6 hadn’t turned up. So there were only 2 of us left in it. But the escort couldn’t stop as well……

We started SS7 still giving it some beans, and got about half way round where there is a long straight, which is about 30 seconds worth, as you always see the other car going the other way. The rest of the lap was uneventful, but on the second time round, we saw that the escort was still only 30 seconds ahead of us, exiting the chicane opposite us as we ran down the long straight. I glanced at it and thought “that’s going slowly”, but you always think that. But when we got round to them, we realised that they had stopped! We were now the only runners in the Trophy Rally, if they went OTL…..

We got back to service, and had some problems with the relays again, but got the car started. And got to the head of the queue, to find that we were the only runners! All we had to do was finish the stage, and we’d get the trophy! But the car had other ideas. About half way round the first lap, it cut out again. But we knew what to do, and Kev held the relay in, for the next lap and a half. And we finished! Which meant that we’ve finally won something! OK, it was ‘only’ the Trophy Rally, but you have to finish it to win, and we were the only ones that did. And it’s a nice trophy too. Looking at our stage times briefly I think we were doing OK anyway, and when I get some results I’ll see where we would have come had we kept going, but it was a good day, despite the problems. Yes, we didn’t finish, but we kinda did! Video to follow, when I get my new converter working properly….

…Longcross (if you didn’t know) is a military test track, near where the M3 and M25 meet. It’s a place that’s renowned for it’s ability to kill cars, and I’d heard rumours that it will be closing soon. It was my first taste of rally spectating at the kind of events I’d be doing, so I really thought it would be a shame not to have a go before it closes. So, we entered the “Spotted Dick and Custard” stages, which ran yesterday.

Drove up early to the rally, leaving about 6:30am. Got there for before 8am, and set up, got noise tested (which was amusing as the car in front had rammed his exhaust with wire wool to quieten it up and it popped out looking like a dead cat!), and scrutineered. All was well. My mate Paul came along (having had problems finding the place, despite having satellite navigation) as I was sure he’d want to do it when he saw what went on, which turned out to be true by the end of the day!

First stage was terrible as the tyre pressures were all wrong – too low at the back, too high at the front – the car was all over the place and really scary in places. It was running well but felt slow compared to the others, and it’s such a wide track you feel like you’re almost in reverse anyway…… The second stage was better with the right pressures, although the track was really difficult – there’s a “snakey” section which has opposite cambers and is designed to test handling, and it certainly did that! The sides of the road are what are apparently called “dutch drains” – the road just drops off steeply (about a foot, apparently) and the trench there is filled with big stones; if you go off it’ll mean serious damage to the car! Didn’t find out, luckily!

But the biggest thing about Longcross is the tank test hill. There are four of them side by side, but we were only using the least steep one, which was still approaching 45 degrees – it’s really steep, and about 80 feet high. We got up to about 60mph on it, and were just getting airborne on the later stages when coming up the hill. By this time there was a loud “clunk” coming from the left front suspension, and it turned out the the top strut mouning had cracked; it consists of a flat plate and a ‘cup’ section, and the two were no longer welded together! Luckily the car’s weight held it in place, and being tapered it wasn’t too much of a problem, although we did wonder if the car would hold together. Luckily, it did, and we finished 43rd overall (of 60 starters), and ahead of two 1600cc cars! We were last in class though. Which is a bummer. Still, we did Longcross, and survived, which is more than can be said by the crew of the two cars that crashed at the top of the hill on SS5 – one (a Mk1 Golf) looked very sorry for itself when towed down – the left front suspension was almost totally ripped off, the windscreen shattered, the sumpguard and exhaust hanging off too. The other car that crashed was leading at the time, so they won’t be best pleased either!

Next up is Caerwent on the 26th September – another Military installation, this one has a fearsome reputation too; the stages are apparently about 7 miles long with over 100 bends per stage! 11″ high concrete kerbs mean any errors are punished severely, and apparently a low-powered car has a good chance there. Which should help us! I’ll just have to get my act together…..

Paul took some photos of us on our merry way round, so here are the best two (note the suspension is working quite hard; we may not be fast, but we are trying!)

Wow, what a day that was. Total contrast to Smeatharpe in a number of ways.

First up, we drove to the rally from here, rather than getting a B&B. Unfortunately I’d mis-read the finals and got our scrutineering time wrong, until I read it at 6am and realised we needed to get there ASAP. Found it no problem at all, and got in the queue for scrutineering, which took a while, but we passed OK. Got to the service area and saw that we looked to be the only one not trailering and not having a big van for service. Got the wheels on, and were so late we missed the briefing and were in a bit of a hurry for stage one’s start. Got started OK, but found that this was a totally different proposition to the last rally, as there was a tight section which was over concrete paths which were only a car’s width, and there was no way to stay totally on them. Really felt it was bashing the car about, much more so than before. Stage two was a little hurried at the beginning, and we found the tyres were going off a bit towards the second lap, after the tight section; this was slowly addressed by bringing the tyre pressures down to 27 front and 22 rear hot, which got it sorted. However, much of the lap relied on being in second gear, which was quite grindy after the ‘new’ gearbox. On the upside, the car was topping 90 on the longer straights, and the brakes were really great.

On the later stages we got things more together, and improved times despite making a couple of excursions into the countryside on one stage when I got a bit OTT, and also really banging the front end hard by making a mess of the hairpin as we were being persued by a lapping car. Note to self: Sod everyone else, don’t look in the mirrors, and get on with your own race.

By stage 6, the car had started popping out of second in tight hairpins, so Kev took to holding it in gear, which worked pretty well; our times were good, and on this stage we nearly caught the car in front, a Lotus-Cortina, which was really good; we later had a chat with them and it turned out they had some issues with the front end (the struts were coming apart at the top) so they were taking it easy in the tight, bumpy section, but we were catching them on the rest of the lap too; the Fav really is excellent under braking, and handles well. On the next stage we were overtaken by a 2-litre Escort on the long straight, but saw that he was braking about twice the distance from the corner that we were, and we could still have braked harder; by the middle of the corner we were right behind him. If there’s a way to get more straight line speed out of the car without sacrificing reliability then the Fav really will be able to kick ass and take names!

Unfortunately the gear problem was getting worse, and during stage 8 it got much worse, and half way through stage nine we lost second completely, which is a real problem as the engine is not grunty enough to pull well in third (although it’s better with the lower final drive ratio; with the old box we would have been screwed completely). Stage 10 had to be done with no second gear at all, although it did have the advantage of showing us that a couple of the corners could be taken with wider lines in third! We got really harried in the tight section, and had to cane it in first, which the car really didn’t like; it started cutting out completely, and I thought it was all over as it stalled a couple of times. We got it going again, and finished the stage, but we’d lost 40 seconds compared to Stage 9 because of it. Final thing was when we got to the last control, the engine cut out, and wouldn’t go again. Lucky it didn’t happen 20 yards before! We got pushed through the service area, and Steve came to help, and we soon found that it was the distributor cap that had packed up and the arm was coming loose, and the oil filler cap was missing. Steve had a universal fuel filler cap which he gave me, and we bodged the distributor back together with some card, and it fired up straight away!

We checked the results, and it turned out that we only lost one place because of the loss of second gear, which wasn’t too disheartening; we’d come 7th in class (of 13) and 55th overall (of 85), which I reckon is really good; more to the point we’d done nearly 80 hard stage miles and had a bloody great time. But without second gear, the drive home was a little dodgy in places, and as it meant I couldn’t take part in the BDCC Slalom today, I went out instead, and went diving today. Now I just need to get the gearbox sorted so it’s reliable, and then we’ll be back. Everyone says that Caerwent is the next event to do, so we’ll have to get an entry for it!