Skoda Rally Blog

Here are some photos from Rally GB 2008

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Sunday, the last day of Rally GB 2008. Four stages to go, but we’d been told it would be cold. And they weren’t wrong. We got up early as we needed to clean up the house and pack up (as we were leaving today), and I went out to see that the cars were solid with frost – it was really cold – probably colder here than it had been at any point in our stay. Great. I warmed the car up so we’d at least have a frost-free trip, but by the time we got everything done, packed and ready, we didn’t get to Parc Ferme until about 3 minutes to go. No real rush, but not ideal. A massive thanks to the marshals there who (on grounds of safety, M’lord) had scraped the ice from the windows on the Skoda. On the way out one of them had some de-icer and sprayed the screen and gave it a squeegee off. Fantastic support, and typical of all the marshals we’ve met throughout the weekend.

Into Service, Ian had already got everything set up, but there wasn’t much to do, just load up the car with camera, food and crew stuff, check the fluids and then we were off to the service out control and once more to the tyre checking people. Most of the time we’ve had our tyres checked by the same crew, who’ve been a good laugh and very supportive, but of course we’d broken our own record by changing two wheels so now we’d have used a total of 8 for the event. Tyre checks were made much more pleasant by one of them being the lovely scrutineer trainee who’d checked over the car – she was always chatty and had beautiful eyes. Anyway…..

…. off out to Rheola. For once we had plenty of time, so sat down the hill a bit, and drove up slowly to the control as I wanted to spare the clutch – there had been a couple of times where I’d smelled it and I felt that any unneccesary stress could lead to it giving up, so caution was a good idea – I spent the rest of the day looking for level areas to stop on rather than inclines. We were told that it was slippy and compacted throughout, and had an ice warning to sign, for 500 metres after J22, which was near the bottom of the stage.

Rheola starts with a fairly fast downhill section, and then a couple of tighter turns and then a hairpin right. Usually this hairpin is cut up really badly by the time we get to it, but it wasn’t at all. The surface rocks had been cleared, but the road itself wasn’t damaged at all, showing just how cold it had been. It wasn’t mega-slippy, but nowhere near as grippy as it would normally be (and indeed as it was on Recce). Off up the hill, and it was the same everywhere – no ruts to hook into at all. Once we got out into the sun (a tight left at the top round a tree where there are usually lots of spectators) it was softer, and the next section of the stage was mostly exposed so it was softer, a bit cut up (but not as bad as we’d expect) and good, but still slippy and icy, always in the shade. The bit at the top (where the diggers get parked) is usually terrible, but it wasn’t bad – despite being in the sun it wasn’t too soft, and made a nice change, although there were still rocks about, and I took care round a few to try to avoid beating the tank guard off). Down into Walters Arena and it was OK but the first part of the descent (a long downhill that ends in a 4 left) was worrying at first – it wasn’t slippy, but where it had been regraded it was washboardy and sounded like something had failed but I realised in a second or so what it was – it sounded like some of the roads in Mauritania, and at Paul’s request I gave it a bit more over the jump, and it was OK (although I’m sure not spectacular enough for everyone else!) and I was surprised not to have been caught yet – Paul said there were cars behind, but they were a long way back. The next section is a number of faster turns and then a long downhill right into a left and then a 4 right into the tree section. The downhill was OK, but as soon as we got in the shade it was icy – slush on top of ice – and we went very wide on a couple of turns. At this point I totally lost confidence; this coupled with the sun making it hard to see until you were right in a corner in most cases meant I really went off it, and then we came to the section we’d been warned about. The bit that worried me the most was the downhill section, about 80 metres down with a 3 right with a big rock inside which is then bumpy and goes into a 3 left through a gate and another gate. We got caught here as I took it easy – it was very slippy – but we let one car through then another – I didn’t realise it was 2 of them, Nathan O’Connor and Gordon Nichol. The rest of the stage was slow as I’d really lost it, I was worried at every corner even though there was no need really – in the sun it was OK and at lower altitude it was also OK. Got caught by David Harrison as well. I was really at the lowest I’d been now. Let both of us down.

Once we were out on the road things were a bit quiet, and Paul had a word. He was right – I’d been crap and I knew it. As he said, we don’t want to go out, but if you’re being cautious it’s almost more dangerous, so I spent the rest of the road section geeing myself up and trying to get back the confidence that I felt yesterday. The test would be if I’d keep it up when we started Port Talbot – the start crew told us it was a bit slippy in there but with no sheet ice. This was good, so off we went.

And it went well.

Really well.

In fact, I’d say this was the best I’ve ever driven. Obviously if you look at the times, we’re miles off everyone else, but I don’t give a monkey’s about that. We have a car that started the event with 80 horsepower from an engine that has been sat in my shed for a couple of years that was called into service at the last minute. It’s used 2 litres of oil in 2 days, and has a driver who has to temper the desire to have a good time with the realisation that if I trash it, I’ll have to repair every last bit of damage, and foot the bill for everything. But it went really well anyway – the stage is much better this way round as you have some tighter stuff to get you in the swing of things, and then it opens out later on. Before that though, there’s a valley to be crossed where you drop right down to a little bridge and go back uphill for a LONG time (which is much nicer than going downhill on a long straight, for me), and the back of the car was bouncing around all over the place here, but I kept it going. I took it easy in the hairpins as I didn’t want to break a driveshaft (the only mechanical issue we’ve had with the cars has been this), but everywhere else I think I gave it enough to get a real buzz – there were a couple of bits where the car just lifts off a bit, and I even needed to brace my right knee against the cage padding on some corners to keep completely still in the seat – my legs were moving about otherwise. This was wicked, and a total contrast to the stage before. Next there is a section of ‘fast’ 1 left and right corners – they’re not visible in sequence so good notes and trust in them is needed, but I remembered it being fine on recce so I gave it some, and ended up pushing hard in 5th, which was a good feeling. At the end of this section there’s a 2 right that you can hook and we did that too, and it was just spot on. At the jump I took it a bit easy as the back of the car goes really light and I didn’t want to mash the front like I did last year in Walters, but it was OK. I made a note of the gear and revs for next time, and then back into another fast section between some trees. This was spot on again, great fun. Lots of grip, pushing in 5th, fantastic. There’s an open section once more with some more 3 corners and some culverts to avoid, and then a last section with 1 and 2 corners left and right before a couple of tight ones and over the finish.

Before the stop control Paul turned to me and said “Now’s THAT’s how to drive the f***ing car”. I was happy, ‘cos I’d not let him down this time. G’work!

Back to service, just a check over as all seemed well, and Ian had packed up as he needed to get going. He’d been a legend throughout the weekend, and I couldn’t have picked a better man to service for us – he’d combined mechanicing, scavenging, fronting his way close to Citroen to get some great pics, being a top motivator and damn funny and even making me “power shakes” and warming my gloves before the starts in the morning. I’m glad he had a good time as I was worried he’d be bored, but how often do you get to service in the WRC and nose round the service park? Once in a lifetime, I think, if that, for most. We set off, and so did he, once we made sure we had the van keys!

A last time through the tyre check, and then back out to Rheola. This time it was going to be different, I’d give it more, as I was feeling more confident. There were places to take care, but not to be as cautious as I had been. I needed to remember that Crychan 2 had been icier than this and once we got in a rhythm and told the car what to do, we went OK. If you go off the boil or give up, then it’s over. We arrived in good time, and saw that car 88 was behind us (he’d obviously had a few nightmares), in an Evo, so I went to speak to him (checking he spoke English) and told him if he caught us we’d move as soon as it was safe to do so. He seemed surprised we’d even mentioned it!

Rheola 2 was a much better job – We got caught more quickly by Nathan this time, but I wasn’t worried about that as we were definitely going better – the stage was STILL not badly cut up for the most part (if this is what it’s like running near the front then it must be fantastic fun, it was like a new stage for us), and this time everything seemed better. The arena was more fun (although I over-cooked it on one of the shaded corners near the end as THAT was still icy), but soon after there is a crest which goes into a 3 right. I was probably going too quickly (or rather would have been), but there was a marshal there giving us the “calm down” gesture so I did, and was sad to see Nathan’s car off on the left. Couldn’t see whether it was beached or a mechanical problem but obviously we had to worry about our own issues, and cracked on again). We got caught by Gordon but don’t think we held him up too much, but the shaded section after the long downhill corner was slipper than before if anything – a couple of times we nearly went off despite me doing the “right” thing and keeping lock and power on. If I’d not done that we’d have been off for sure! The post-J22 section was taken easier and was still as slick as hell, so I was glad to have avoided either going straight on, hitting the rock, or the gates. Heard later that this claimed one of the Land Rover boys who just hit it and went straight off at about 5 mph, and smashed his radiator. Game over.

At the very end Harrison caught us up, but there was no point in moving over as we’d both have lost time – it was literally at the last corner. I later found out that he’d not slowed down after the Flying Finish (we didn’t slow down over it, but did brake for the next corner) and he’d nearly hit us! Can’t see the point of saving 0.5 seconds to get to the control, really, having seen a peugeot go off years ago doing the same thing and ending his rally….

The lovely people a the end control and car wash gave us a clap, which was ace, and also their last two chocolates which was a really nice thought! I was pleased, and I think Paul was too – not with the chocolate, but that we’d made it through without driving like a total wimp. Later I found out we’d cut a minute and a half off the first time, which is better. Probably could have cut another 30 seconds off easily too. But we were still in it, and with just 1 stage to go.

We arrived at Port Talbot 2 with plenty of time to go, and a (I think Finnish) spectator had a chat with me. Between his broken English and the fact that he was hammered it wasn’t the most in-depth conversation, but he said it was good to see some “normal” cars in it, and there should be more like me. He also noticed the blown sidelight, which was letting the side down on the Skoda’s reliability record. I blame German bulbs.

Someone had managed to write “Hoval Skiddo” on the back of every car, and someone had also written “Well done” in the dirt on the rear window. We weren’t there yet. I looked at the front tyres, and they were down to about 4mm of tread. Not good, but no time to change both fronts (or even ONE front, in fact), so in we went. I noticed into the first braking area that there was less grip, but it wasn’t terrible, just less than it should be. I tried to forget about it and carry on as usual, but there was always a nagging “don’t mess this up” voice in my head, which meant I’d brake just a bit earlier. Should have done so for the first square left that we came to as we nearly ended up off the far side there, but got it back together and carried on. It was still good fun, but I could feel that it wasn’t as quick as before as I definitely needed to brake a bit earlier and take a little more care into corners as the front was just pushing where I wouldn’t expect it. When we got to the jump…. I couldn’t remember what gear I was in before, or the revs! Gordon had just overtaken us and he braked a fair bit for it, so I took that as a cue and hit it reasonably well. The back went very light (it felt high, probably didn’t even lift off), and off we went once more. The rest of the stage was just a blur for me. No really bad errors, just being careful on the few ‘cares’ that were marked, mostly at the end of faster sections, although there are a couple of places where there are logs, rocks or badly-placed culverts which would mean game over. Near the very end there were some people riding on the edge of the stage and up on the grass on motorbikes, going WD, which I thought was bloody stupid, but we got to the end OK. I think we’d seen 3 cars off during this stage (all with OK notices), but I was mostly concentrating on making sure we didn’t join them.

We’d done the stages.

Time to go back to service, which was straightforward, and made sure we got a good jetwash from the Karcher boys, and then spoke to James from Motorsports News and some other reporters, which was splendid. Into service, there was just enough time to remove the WRC tracker and hand it in at the out control (10 minutes isn’t long when you only have the two of you to do all that), and then it was off to Cardiff, which handily had a nice long section time and no traffic, meaning we got there with about 15 minutes to spare, so we got out and had a chat with everyone around us.

It was a pity not to see Nathan make it to the finish, we’ve not seen what happened to him yet. Everyone else seemed pleased to be there, with cars in various states of disrepair. The Turkish womens’ Fiesta was immaculate – showroom in every respect. The skoda probably would have done if I’d made a better job of the paint on the bumpers, and didn’t have a cracked windscreen. Jocius’ evo looked…. well, I didn’t see a single part on it that wasn’t damaged in some way or another! We booked in, meaning we were almost there, and then I took the time to look around at the other cars, having signed someone’s COAT (this is a step up from paper stuff), and also a photo of N158UBD on WRGB 06, which was special!

Obviously results and times don’t really concern us. As anyone who reads this will probably know, I’m just a normal bloke who loved the idea of doing rallying. I’ve never claimed to be anything special behind the wheel, and I proved that the first time I did a forest event, and was going to give up (thanks to Steve Colville for not letting that happen). I’m much better than I was, but I don’t have any delusions of adequacy. So looking at results generally isn’t a great idea unless there’s someone in a similar position (on the Sunseeker we have the Beckett brothers to swap times with, and last year Dey Roy was about the same speed as us). So I had NO idea what had been going on, aside from Paul finding out during road sections that Loeb and Latvala had been having a really close run. I had no idea really about Mikko’s roll, or that Ogier had also rolled, so it was a surprise to hear it, and even more so when we looked at the car – aside from a bit of a ripple in the roof and some gaffa tape for the top windsceen seal, the car looked mint. What it must be to have a service crew and budget that can allow that sort of miracle! The rest of his car was a feast for the car junkie, and I took note of the nets that were in the sides at the back as I’ve always wondered where they magic their coats up from when they have to sit in a forest for a couple of hours.

We had a LONG wait for our place on the podium, so had a good chat and swapped stories with the Army boys and thanked them for the toolbox lid that had definitely got us to the end as the tankguard. Our tax ? well spent, I think.

We were last but one onto the podium, but there was still a fair sized crowd there, and I got out to give them a round of applause as their support can keep you going when you’re really tired. Which I was. This was helped greatly by being handed a box with an award in for Class A5, Wales Rally GB 2008. It’s like the last award, so it’s a thing of beauty both mentally for me and physically. A quick chat on the PA, thanking everyone for their support, and then off to Parc Ferme, where the cars have to be (untouched) in case of any protests or technical infringements. This happens in the millennium stadium, so it was easy to find and we got a finisher’s award each here too. Once we drove into the stadium (for the last time) it was empty aside from several million quid’s worth of WRC cars, and a few lesser beasts, and a little Skoda now.

We parked up, I took a bunch of pictures and Paul headed off to get the release document we’d need to get the car out later on (parc Ferme is closed until the results are final, a predicted time of 7pm and it was now 5pm). I took the last opportunity I’d have to get close to some WRC cars in the quiet and simultaneously marvelled at the engineering (Mikko’s car was nearly all carbon fibre, and was a masterpiece of engineering) and realised that such expense and specialisation is the exact reason the WRC is where it is today (this isn’t a good thing in my opinion).

We hailed a taxi to get the recce car (which handily had been parked in a housing estate in cardiff by a good, good friend of ours earlier on), and Paul drove us back to Swansea to pick up the van and trailer. It was funny as the recce car is obviously just a standard Felicia, which isn’t the most refined of cars – compared to my Focus it’s in another generation, and Paul’s just picked up a new 320D (the day before we left, in fact), which is another generation ahead again. But compared to the 5000rpm crusing of the rally car (if you want to simulate it, just leave your car in third gear on the motorway, you’ll be about right) it seemed refined and calm, even with the sumpguard bashing on the exhaust whenever you back off the throttle.

We collected the van and trailer from the service park, which was already almost totally deserted, and parked up at the J33 services, and Paul dropped me off at the stadium to pick up the car. I was hoping for a bit more of a look at the WRC cars, but most were already heading out, so I got the camera on and videoed them leaving – they sounded amazing, and were being driven quite…exuberantly. So much so that whoever was driving the Mikkomobile nearly hit the back of Wilson’s when he stopped!

In Parc Ferme there were now only about 5 cars left – Rossi’s was being trailered, Tony Jardine’s and a couple of the Turkish Fiestas, and the Skoda. I got in, started it up for the last time and headed out. Still had a few poeple taking snaps of the car as I went, and somebody decided to race me on a roundabout, so I le them go – no point in ruining an otherwise good day! The drive home was long and slow as it was very foggy, and as I got in I was nearly asleep, hence this being posted on Monday. As I type this, it’s MOnday morning, I have the van and trailer outside on the road, and the class award on the table to the left of me. I still didn’t sleep well last night because I am still hyper about it. 5 months of hard work has paid off. I have built a car which completed Rally GB (so maybe I can add the original build time and make it 10 months?), and had a good time in the process. It’s sad that it’s the last time I’ll be able to do it, but right now I’m not going to think about that, just got to unload, clean up and return the van today, and then work tonight!

I don’t want this to turn into the oscars, but I would like to say a few thank-yous:

Paul – for being a good mate, being a bloody good navigator and also the foil to all my dodgy personality traits. I’m never sure if he thinks finishing this is an achievement, but hopefully he does, and realises how much he’s made it happen. His positive nature when things have gone wrong (like the first engine blowing up) has helped me get on with it rather than thinking it’d all gone down the pan.
Ian – service crew and all round top bloke. He was a star on the way to Banjul, and the same in Swansea.
The marshals – There are HUNDREDS of these people who give their time to allow motorsport to happen – for many of them this is their participation in the sport (some compete, some don’t), and they are always a pleasure to speak to. This year many of them have been reading this (and a couple telling me off for not getting Saturday’s blog up before they went to bed!), and I’d like to thank each of them for all the work they put in. Without them the rally would not only not run, but even if it did it wouldn’t be as much fun. At no point has anyone who has marshalled made us feel like also-rans or no hopers (i’m always expecting someone to come out and just go, “come on, Jones, the games’s up. Go home!”, quite the opposite in fact. Sorry if I forgot everyone’s names (in fact I don’t know most of them), as well, and I hope that none of my comments are misdirected as being anti-anyone (aside from whoever decided the road section timings after the changes to Friday’s stages – they were too short given the conditions, in my opinion, and even that’s not anti-THEM, just that I feel they made an error of judgement, but I know I’m not privy to the whole process, and it was a difficult situation)
My friends who have supported me by saying “Chin up” or it’ll be OK when everything’s been going wrong, particularly Julie – I didn’t believe you were right until Sunday afternoon, but you were.
Finally, my Mum. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I know you shouldn’t mention a woman’s age, but she is 70 years old, and how many women of that age would help with changing a gearbox? She has done, amongst many other things – fitting engines (putting crucial bolts in while I’m holding everything in place), etc.,etc.,etc. Whenever I’ve been too pushed for time to get things sorted or bought, all I’ve needed to do is leave a list, and by the time I get back from work, it’s been done. She even took the time to go into Kwik Fit to sound them out about fitting the rally car tyres and took the mickey as they said the tyres “would break the machine”.

So, where now? I have no idea. Rally GB 2009 isn’t an option because we’d need a HANS device each, new helmets and possibly new seats. I can see a time where National A rallies will also require them, but at present that would mean an extra ?1000+ each just to do Rally GB, and it’s a real strain to do it anyway, financially. It’s a pity as the Skoda still has 2 years of homologation left on it, but there you go. At the moment I’ve got a car that needs:

Suspension
Tank Guard
Windscreen
Clutch
Engine Rebuild
and a bunch of other little things!

One last thing for today: There have been 4000 people a day reading this. I’m honoured, I hope it’s been interesting, and I’ll put up pictures and videos later on, just thought I’d post this now while WRGB 2008 is still fresh in people’s minds.

Another bad night’s sleep, and then time to go get the car. I’d been outside to get the now dried mud off of my race suit (and gave up with the jacket I’d put down when putting the tank guard back on before Walters) and it didn’t seem that cold. But it was – the car was iced up solid, which didn’t bode well as Resolfen had been icy already. When we got to Parc Ferme most of the cars had already gone, with only one left to go after us. The car was iced up, but started on the button, and I warmed it up during the 10 minutes we had before checking out of the Parc Ferme area – de-icing the windows and so on before leaving for the service in control. Morning service is just a quick affair, really enough to pack the car and get going, so we put in the camera and food and so on, and then it was time to go.

We needed to put fuel in on the way out, which was done, and then off to Resolfen, which is fairly local. The road section took longer than it should have done as there were several really slow people on the road, and we got there with only 25 seconds before our due time – Paul had already got everything ready, so we were in and ready to go fairly quickly – not enough time to run the camera or anything like that, alas. I was relived when I asked one of the start marshals and he said there was no ice in there as he’d broken it all up with a JCB the night before and it had all melted. Good news indeed. Off we went into the stage, and soon I remembered why I spend months spending all my spare time and money getting the car ready for this – the magical feeling of driving through the forests. Granted, we’re not going at the pace of Latvala or Loeb, but we’re going quick enough for it to be good fun. Finally it was a chance to see how the car really went, and it went pretty well – the close ratio box transforms the car, meaning you’re always in the right gear, and once I’d got the hang of it, I was taking corners a gear higher than I was before, which was good but meant a bit of a re-calculation in places.

Because of the super-rally rules, we have a number of people who are miles quicker than us starting behind us today – and today’s unlucky chap was car 83, an R3 clio. Who was quick. Quick enough to have caught us by the square right across the open section (maybe 1/4 way into the stage), but handily where we could move across and let him go without too much loss for either of us. The next bit of the stage is fairly quick, and he was miles quicker than us, and disappeared fairly quickly. But we were going OK, and the stage was fairly smooth for the most part and the notes were working well – I think the extra details I’d put in were really helping, rather than leaving everything as visually done, calling each corner meant more confidence in what was going to happen, and a slightly higher speed as a result. By the time we got to the top of the stage, we’d already re-passed car 83 as he looked to be changing a wheel, and then it was time to see if the JCB man had been good to his word and really cleared the ice.

He had – the 600 yard run uphill was now a flat out thrash, and the crowds up here were really big – I guess people were making the most of the sun, and we managed to at least be giving it some beans in fourth by the left turn at the end. There’s then a section which has some 1 and 2 corners and goes downhill, and is really quick. Quick enough for the car to be on the power in 5th, which is probably as quick as we’ve ever been, and it seemed weird to need to put it down 3 gears to make the next corner! After this there was a more shaded section which I took easy as it could still be a bit icy, but it wasn’t bad at all, and then into the quarry section where you can probably really give it heaps if you have balls of steel. Mine aren’t, so I was only giving it a couple of beans, but we were still flat in fourht in places, which was quick enough. The final section of the stage is much tighter (and new for this year), and mostly went well aside from some sections that were into the sun with the track in the shade, meaning I couldn’t see what was happening. Rather than crash I took it easy, or put one hand to block the sun, but given my car control it was probably a stupid thing to do… but it worked for the most part. The end of the stage came up after car 91 had passed us (although I thought our car was knackered afterwards as there was a smell of oil, but it wasn’t us), and stupidly I went through the water splash after the flying finish… meaning we were completely steamed up at the end and on the road section, neccessitating a wipe of the screen which would come back to haunt us later.

The road section to Halfway is pretty long, and took us through some scenic countryside, but with some roads that were quite hard to keep the speed up safely – there were a couple of dodgy moments with others coming the other way, but all good in the end, and we got to the stage with 8 minutes to spare, so I got out, had a stretch and took some photos. The driver of car 83 came over to thank me for moving over, and I told him we’d get out of his way as soon as it was safe every time he caught us… which would be on every stage! From here Halfway looked good – dry and sunny – so hopefully the run through would be OK throughout.

The first part of Halfway is open land, with fast, flowing tracks, but a few surprises for the unwary – there are boulders on the edge that even clipping would mean end of rally, and hitting them hard would mean end of car. Some are in odd places when running this way round, so I made sure that I didn’t hit them! As ever, 83 caught us fairly quickly, and I gave him space as I didn’t want any more damage to the windscreen – he was chucking up a bunch of stones as he went by, and the star crack in our screen was growing slowly, but seemed OK at the mo.

The second half of halfway is a more traditional forest stage, with quite a few dropoffs but a lovely stage overall. It had cut up in places, but most of it was good. What wasn’t good was the sun – where the stage was in the shade, again, we couldn’t see much, and where I’d wiped the screen after steaming up had made visibility a lot worse. I’m sure I looked really cautious to spectators in these places as we had to take it easy, but I’d rather than than totalling the car. Where it was good, though it was really good fun – the calls were coming well, and the last section which is quite quick was again taken in 5th gear in places and 4th in all the rest. Good fun, and once more I remembered why I’d made all the effort. In places the hits were hard and the front end was bottoming out with massive bangs reverberating through the shell, but most of it was good. I’d forgotten the little bridge at the bottom of the stage towards the end, and it was funny seeing how many birds were in the stage tracks – I guess the worms are getting dug up and they’re having a meal!

There was no time to do anything as we were off to Crychan straight away, and into the stage, which we were told was a bit icy in places, and it certainly was. We moved off line to let 83 through, and nearly lost it as it was very slippy off-line, but I carried on, agian with some issues with icy sections, and also the sun being a problem in the tighter areas – I was getting a bit used to driving one-handed, just wished I could do it as well as Richard Burns does! The end of the stage seemed to come up very quickly, which was quite a surprise. There’s a long section of forest track to take down to the road, and near the end we saw Jamie Smith’s Impreza with the bonnet up, looking like he’d hit something, but we didn’t have time to stop and ask or help, alas – the road section back to service was tight for time, and being held up by traffic didn’t help matters. We had to stop for fuel as suddenly it seemed to be losing a lot, and I thought we might have a leak. I looked underneath to find…. NO TANKGUARD! It was completely gone! The tank looked OK, though, so we fuelled up and went. I got Paul to call Ian to see if he could get hold of some metal sheet or plastic to make something up and gave him some rough dimensions.

We got to service with a couple of minutes to spare, and went through the usual routine of being jetwashed off, moving to near the arrival control and then chatting to various people, including James from Motorsports News to find out what had been going on as much as anything…. and then into service. We found Ian had not only set up the gazebo and service area perfectly, but had a SELECTION of items to make a tankguard out of that he’d scavenged. There was one (a metal panel, from an army box) which couldn’t have been more ideal if it had been measured and cut to size. Within 10 minutes we’d put some bends into it to put it over the exhaust, drilled holes for cable-tie mountings and bent the front edge up to avoid catching the rocks. Perfect. The rest of service was routine as the car was running OK, aside from needing a LITRE of oil, which worried me, but no time to think too much about it, time to go. Big thanks to the Armed Forces Rally team for their generosity on this part.

The run out to Resolfen 2 was difficult because the time was tight, we needed fuel and the station was busy, but we made the best we could of it, and got to the stage arrival with 20 seconds to spare, long enough to get helmeted up and in in time, and then we were into the stage quickly. Once more it was a good run, although a LOT more cut up than before, and we got caught by car 83 in the same place again. Previously on this stage I’ve always bent front wheels by heavy rocks in a certain section, and we made it through here without damage. A couple of pages in the notes further on, I just thought “Yes! We’ve made it without bending a wheel” when BANG….we did it again. The characteristic Bang Bang Bang Bang was there again, and after a quick check of how far to go we decided to keep going rather than lose 6 minutes in the stage changing the wheel. Usually the banging gets less (and indeed drops to nothing after a while), but this must have been a big one as it didn’t get that much less all the way round. I don’t think we went as well as before as the cut-up state of the stage and me thinking “we might make it to Cardiff” was coming into play. We got caught by #84 (the female Turkish Crew), but no-one else. Again the sun was a problem in places towards the end, but this time I didn’t steam us up when we came out. We made it out to the road and then changed the wheel, which was AGAIN the left front – every single time it has been, so maybe there is something to the old thing about always hitting the navigator’s side of the car!

Off to halfway with the long road section, and got there with a couple of minutes to spare. The stage run started out OK, but with the cut-up nature of it it was tougher in places (albeit nothing like Myherin!). 83 made his way past a bit earlier this time, and then we were across Dixies. I decided to give it a bit more on the way down from here, and couldn’t avoid a pothole on the left and BANG! I’d done another wheel….. no time to stop, and again it wasn’t getting any quieter as we went, so we just kept on with it. The stage had cut up in places more than I expected, and there were a few moments on the way down to the bridge, but mostly it went well, and still the end section was good with the 1 and 2 corners taken in 4th and 5th.

No time to change the wheel, it was off to Crychan 2. It was starting to feel cold and nasty again, with some fog here and there, and we needed the pod lamps on as we went. We got caught by 83 and let him past on what looked like a decent section, and it was icy and slippy, and we nearly stuck it in a ditch as a result! Even when on line here it was slippy – it’s amazing that when you’re at speed it seems OK, but as soon as you’re going slower it seems more dangerous than when you’re going quickly. Relatively speaking. The rest of the stage was good, but there were several “moments” as there were some sections that seemed to be icing up a fair bit, and I wanted to get to the end, which was done after what seemed like a much longer time than before. The wheel was still banging like hell as we came to the end of the stage, and had to get going quickly, fuelling up in the same place and then needing to really thrash it to get to Cardiff in time – so much so that we didn’t have time to change the wheel before the regroup before the millennium stadium.

We were told by the CLO that we couldn’t change the wheel while in regroup, so we had to leave it, and went inside for some free drinks, use of the loo and watching some of the other cars do the millennium stage. Some of them were giving it heaps (Gassner Jr in particular), others were taking it a bit easier, but soon enough we had to go and give it a go. I set the camera ready to record, but it was playing up and there was no time to sort it out – we were in and ready to go. As we set off… BANG BANG BANG as we went, and then jumped into the Stadium which was dark and really atmospheric. On the first lap as soon as we turned right I felt a problem – the left front obviously got pushed off the rim and started to go flat, so it was a bit dodgy on the right turn (fortunately only one a lap), and the rest was just good fun, and I tried to get it a bit sideways on the turn by the arch – I nearly did on the last lap at the flying finish. The stop control is inside the stadium and they big you up to the crowd. I was pleased to see a LOT of people there (way more than in 06), and even more so to hear them clapping, so I gave them a clap in return – many thanks to everyone who did that.

Then we were off again, but needed to change the wheel, which was done in the street just outside. It took a while (during which I managed to give myself a massive blood blister), and it wasn’t helped by some wise-acre giving it the “you’d be no good in F1” routine as it took about 4 minutes to change – a massive crowd had gathered by this time too. But then I doubt they do it with hand tools and a Skoda jack….

The road section back to service was done in good time, without needing to fuel as the car cruises so well and uses little fuel, so we made it with minutes to spare (which was nice), but it did involve taking a few liberties as the town was rammed and the times were very tight. We then had a nice relaxed service – Ian taking care of the few things that needed doing, having a really nice chat with three young guys who wanted to get started, and seeing that both wheels had been REALLY heavily dented – both are completely scrap as the dents are about 5 inches across (being flat now instead of curved) and we finished service early, and booked into Parc Ferme. My car was in the same row as Loeb’s car (which looks fantastic close up – it’s crazily trick), but we didn’t get a pic of both cars in the same shot, so had to settle with me looking like a moron posing with it instead.

So, day 2, done. But apparently it’ll be -5 degrees tomorrow. This will be TRICKY.

Friday was a fairly early start, but seemed earlier as I’d not slept well, waking up half the night. We drove the rally car to service, and got everything sorted out and then off out for the start of the rally proper – TC0 at 7:40am. Into tyre marking (again meeting the nice woman who did our scrutineering), and then off out onto the road section. Which was a MASSIVE 150km with a bit extra on it, with 3h23 to do it in. This might seem like a long time, but it soon got eaten up. When we turned into the stage access road we had about an hour to go, but oddly there were quite a few who were running higher up than us who were parked at the side of the road, but we thought it would be better to get on with it – we’d had a text from a friend who was running radio saying SS1 would be run non-competetively, but still would have to be booked in and out, so we pushed on. The problem with running the stage like this is that we still have to traverse it (and in this case the iciest part of it), but without any safety cover or marshals, etc. And this soon became an issue because we found on an uphill section it was really icy – not something that had been the case when we had done the recce – and we soon ground to a halt – both wheels were spinning (LSD earning its keep), but going nowhere. Nightmare.

Directly behind us was Tony Jardine who gave it a good go at getting us going and pushing us, and we did get going again, but only about 50 yards uphill before we ground to a halt again, and the land rover boys came up to tow us. Hooked on the rope. And went nowhere. All four wheels spinning, and that was BEFORE taking up the slack in the rope. He eventually got going, with some wheelspin, and stones coming out, cracking our windscreen in the process! We eventually managed to get up the hill with some pushing and being on the right part of the road. The rest of it was taken carefully as it was slick and icy in places, with a couple of unintentioanl lockups. We made the stage arrival with 7 minutes to spare, so we’d spent about 40 minutes stuck. Many others were stuck behind us, as we saw those with much lower numbers turn up. Nice to finally meet Macjam from the forum at this point too!

Then we found out the stage was definitely being run non-competetively, which might seem like a good idea, but when you’re not given any more time than before to get to the next control and you can’t wear your helmets, it’s a bit dangerous if you ask me – the stage is being run that way because it’s unsafe, surely? Anyway, we ran through, and the end was as icy as hell – it’s an uphill hairpin right, and I nearly though we wouldn’t make it, and had to take a run up at the next few bits.

On the way to the end of the original stage, there was a downhill into a hairpin right and again it was icy, with some “camera vultures” waiting for us to screw up. Which I promptly did, fortunately there was an uphill section opposite us – if it had been a drop-off we’d have been off, simple as that. Carried on to the link section between this and Sweet Lamb, and crazily the section time was LESS than before hand, despite being longer. Paul made a small error (he added the original time) so we booked in late. Personally at this point I really didn’t give a monkey’s, I was glad we were there in one piece, but he wasn’t happy about it at all as he’s not a man who makes mistakes often! So, we arrived at Sweet Lamb ready to give our first go, but even getting going on this was difficult – it was already rutted as hell, and there was next to no grip. I took it easy as there seemed no point in killing the car this early on, particularly this far away from anything like help, so I guess it was the worst stage time ever. There was one point on a hairpin turn where it was cut up and rocky and took about 20 seconds to get the car going let alone move anywhere. Still, it was done, and off we went to stage 3, Myherin.

The times for this, again, were too short – the stage start had been moved about 7km into the stage, but we only had a few minutes extra to get there. I was pushing as hard as I felt was safe, and Paul was using the notes to tell me what was coming up. There was someone coming the other way in a Golf, and we had to take care there, as he didn’t seem to care about the conditions. There was some ice here, but not as much as before – mainly at the top of the series of hairpins at the start. As we got about 4k into the ‘original’ stage we could see in the distance there was someone coming the other way with a flashing light on it, and Paul told me to be careful as we were about to go behind a rock, and lose sight of him – we’d see him coming the other way soon enough. As we got to the top of the turn, some guys flagged us down and told us there had been an accident down the road, so we took it easy as we came round the corner, and saw something I don’t think I’ll ever forget – Car 86 (A Fiesta ST) had had a head-on collision with a Land Rover Discovery, and it was not a pretty sight – the front of the Fiesta was completely destroyed, and the Land Rover similarly smashed. A real mess. The Land Rover guys were OK, but the Fiesta crew had apparently not had their belts on, and were definitely badly injured. Obviously we stopped and tried to give assistance although there were already crew on the scene, but we made sure no-one else had a problem – other crews turned up and we explained the situation etc., and waited for advice. We were there for about 40 minutes during which time the Fiesta was cut apart to get the Nav out, and the scene taped off. I’m pleased to have been told later on there were no serious lasting injuries to the crew.

We were told to go back to the road and then make our way back to the regroup to remote service in – this was about 15 miles before we’d get back on the original road route, so we did it as soon as we could, but the quite circuitous route made this difficult to do in any sensible time, but eventually we all joined up with the others who’d been held up as well, and got booked into remote service, where we were pleased to see Ian, who’d apparently been hob-nobbing with Loeb’s service crew, etc, taking pictures and all sorts. By the time we got there it was chucking it down with rain and deadly miserable. Fortunately the only thing needed to sort on the car was a loose top mounting, which we did with the assistance of car 97’s wheel nut gun and a 25mm socket I had in the car. Apart from that all was well, but now that the fear/adrenaline of the morning had worn off, I was feeling a bit hungry, but only managed to eat an apple and some chocolate before setting off again – more tyre marking and then off back out to Hafren 2, which I was surprised was still running, given this morning’s situation.

The road timing was much tighter this time so we REALLY needed to get on with it, and having a few slow people didn’t help matters, but we got on with it as much as possible, bearing in mind we were expecting trouble on the icy hill again. This time I took as much of a run-up as I dared, but it was still touch-and-go in places. Another run of the stage followed, again without helmets, and again with some dubious safety, in my opinion – OK, in the stage we would have been fine, but on the “road section” to Sweet Lamb there was not a soul to be seen, and these were the more slippy parts of it. This time we made Sweet Lamb with about 5 seconds to spare, and off we went again. It was much, MUCH worse this time – it’s a real disappointment to have been to a near-mythical stage and to have driven it in a state that doesn’t seem to be fit for a digger in a number of places. I was amazed we got through it all, but we did, and again had a slippy and too-fast “road section” on the way out to the main road. Then we did the road and again the first 7km of the original Myherin to get to the start. We went past the scene of the Fiesta accident and were flagged down to a total stop (despite having been going slowly anyway), delaying us by 20-30 seconds or so, and then having to go faster to try to get to the stage in time. We handed our time card in with 6 seconds to go, but were told we were too late. Another penalty.

Finally we were going to get a chance to run Myherin, and I was hoping the ice would have cleared up. I needn’t have worried, as the worry of ice was replaced by the stage condition being much like that of a quarry, with rocks to match. Now the stage itself would be amazing, but the roads were incredibly cut up, and very, very rocky. We did what we could and actually got into a decent rhythm in the end, even managing to give it some in 4th gear on a series of 1/2 left/right bends, and soon enough we got to the ford, which was at Junction 12. We’d been warned the water was about 2 feet deep here, so I took it a bit easy, but kept some speed up and then gunned it to get it through.

I really, really thought I’d killed the car. You can tell when an engine has taken some water in, it dies and sounds, well, wet. And it really did. I put it in neutral and revved it, but it wasn’t keen. There looked to be about 5 cars there that had died, and some helpful people pushed us a bit, but it was making no power, and took 3-4 attempts to even get moving. THey pushed, I revved, and we just about got going, and tried to get up the hill. It would only pull first, but it WAS going…. and suddenly everything disappeared as the water that had come in everywhere meant the windows steamed up. I didn’t want to stop as I thought we’d never get going so I put the windows down and loosened my straps so I could wipe the screen as it was WAY too much water for the heater to disperse. Paul couldn’t see anything so I just asked for each corner, took it and then cued the next one. We weren’t going quickly, but we WERE going. There were several more cars out at this point, all on the hill going up, so I assume the water had got the better of them too. It took about 3 miles for the windows to clear enough for us to drive normally again, and in that time we saw MANY cars off, but we were still going. Some parts of the stage were OK, some were still rough and cut up, but we went OK, and suddenly the end was upon us.

However, the end wasn’t really. The rest of the stage was now a “road section”, and we had to run this quite quickly, and it was predictably icy, slippy and deserted. We saw a couple of cars off, including one at the point where I’d nearly lost it on recce, and the exit where Loeb’s recce car went off was also VERY dodgy. It seemed to take an age to get to the road, but we did it, and then the long road section to Walters, which was difficult again. We stopped for Fuel where some nice woman pointed out that there was “something loose” under the car. Turns out it was the tank guard, but time was tight so we decided to get to Walters first, and then worry about it. We did that with 6 minutes to spare, and in that time managed to get the tank guard cable-tied back in place (it was the rear that was loose, and cable ties were the original fixing ‘method’), albeit at the cost of me becoming immensely muddy despite sacrificing my coat to the mud a la Francis Drake.

Into the stage, and the downhill section before the main stadium bit was very, VERY slippy – the back of the car seemed keen to overtake the front, and it was only after we got back to service that I found out that it was here that Chris Atkinson had had a nasty accident at the same place, so I’m glad I didn’t lose it here. The rest of it went OK, but the difference it makes being in the dark is immense – things that seemed really easy in the daytime were difficult at night, and it being floodlit meant it constantly looked as if you were being caught or overtaken. The stage went OK, but by now I wanted not to kill the car, so I didn’t go mad ove the jump (unlike last year), and when we got caught by a C2 towards the end I deliberately went wide on the last corner to let him past.

The run back round for Walters 2 was quite long, and as it took 2 minutes to get our timecards back and we only had 8 minutes anyway, we were always going to be late. It was rough and slippy (no, really!), and we were a minute late booking in again, but by now it seemed irrelevant – better to be there late than not at all. The second run was a bit better – the slippy bit aside, everything seemed to be better, although I mistook one corner for another and was surprised when it went right instead of left, but otherwise all was good.

Now, the last road section back to service, which took a quite indirect route through town, and then along the A483 into service. We got jetwashed off, and then waited for the in control, and was pleased to speak to James from Motorsport news, and also Rob who is an organiser on the Sunseeker. Found out at this point we were 50th overall. Which is incredible but obviously means we’ll be in the way of much faster crews tomorrow, which is bad for both of us and them, but we’ll see….

Just going into service we saw Mikko Hirvonen’s car which looked a real mess, and didn’t want to run too well either, but we had our own concerns. The main one in service was the clutch as the cable was adjusted too tight, and let’s just say it took replacing the cable and the refitting it to sort it. Everything else was fairly routine – oil, water, checks, and so on. The car was running well and without rattles, which was nice. Back to the service out control, and we realised we didn’t know where Parc Ferme was, but there was a Ford behind us who apparently would do. I got Paul to get out to ask them where it was. He did this saying “where’s the Parc Ferme, mate”, and he said “follow us”. Only as he walked back to the car did he realise this was Mikko Hirvonen! So we followed Mikko to Parc Ferme, and then off we went.

Day one, done.

Ian arrived around 2, which was handy as we were just about to go shopping again. Once pleasantries were exchanged, we got everything sorted and decided to take Ian to the service park. While I wouldn’t say I was jaded about the whole WRC experience, it’s obviously a totally new box of frogs for Ian, and he was keen to get down there, so we stickered his car up and then set off down there. Unfortunately most of the ‘big boys’ had already gone (aside from those who had hurt their cars on the shakedown, I guess – Henning Solberg’s car seemed to be needing a fair bit of work), but he was still excited about it all, and Paul must have got pulled in as he bought a Rally GB fleece. I settled with a free copy of Motorports News, with a bit about us, which said our budget was less than the Subaru drinks bill (almost certainly true) and that I was “the ultimate privateer”. While I’m sure there are others who could rightfully take that crown, I’ll definitely quote it again!

A quick trip to Sainsbury’s for the food for the weekend and it was just about time to set off for the ceremonial start. This means a 50-mile drive to Cardiff, a bunch of rally cars in the town centre, and driving over a ramp, and then coming back. Which I wasn’t that excited about this year because I was absolutely knackered – the last couple of days had caught up with me – but obviously this would pass, especially after some food and a bit of chocolate, which kicked in on the M4 while we sat in traffic. There was a lot worse to come – the way into Cardiff was choc-a-block, and it took ages to get in there; we’d planned to get there for 6pm so we could see Loeb et al, but we actually got there at 6:41, precisely the time we needed to do to avoid a ?500 fine for being late. Many arrived after us, so I guess they’ll be out of pocket….

Then, the long wait for the start – there were FAR more cars there than should have been when we arrived, and the queue took a long time to move. In that time it was a chance to catch up with a few old faces and have a chat, and also see my friend Juliet who’d brought her two nephews and niece down which was nice to have a little fan club. The rain started coming down quite heavily for a bit, but overall the weather wasn’t too bad given that it’s nearly Christmas and we were in Wales. After what seemed like a long time we got to the start line, and then up onto the ramp. What amazed me was how many people seem to have been reading this blog. I originally started it to keep my sister and her husband up-to-date on what I’d been up to, and it seems that loads of people now read it – it was mentioned on the start line over the PA, and it just seems plain odd that people I’ve never met read this and keep up with it, but there you go. I’d like to thank anyone who has read this and enjoyed it, anyway, I don’t want it to turn into an Oscar speech, it’s just nice that people take some interest, and I guess see a bit more inside what happens when some idiot from Bournemouth decides to play at being a rally driver.

We were then off, down the ramp and out, except, of course, we hadn’t done our belts up so we stopped around the corner and were mobbed by some 12-year-old boys who wanted autographs. Now, when this first happened (on the second time we did the Sunseeker) I said “Oh, don’t be silly”, but now I just sign them. Not ‘cos I think I’m famous or anything, but if that’s what they want, then cool. Maybe one day they’ll do whatever rally is on in the future, and they’ll say “well, that bloke in the Skoda did it”, in the same way the people in the Beetle doing the RAC was my inspiration.

The drive back to Swansea was punctuated by Paul getting Bulletin 3 (handy having the Internet on his phone), which now shows that tomorrow’s route has been severely revised; SS1/4 (Hafren) was originally 19km, it’s now down to 3km. SS2/5 (Sweet Lamb) is down to 4k from 6k, and SS3/6 (Myherin) is down from 35km to 18km. These are MAJOR reductions, and mean major changes – Paul is reworking the paperwork as I type this, as we have to work out where the new starts are (some are given as distances from junction numbers which we would have noted on the recce). This means a revised schedule, and thankfully also means more sane average speeds are needed (particularly on Hafren which was the one I was really worried about as a 62kph average speed in those conditions seemed borderline as we usually average only 75kph on a good day). I can’t help but feel that this will have repercussions, but it has been stressed that this was taken for safety of the competing crews, which means that rescue access was probably impossible. However, we did do the whole stages on recce, and given that (a) I have to pay for and do ANY repairs on the car and (b) Clair said she wouldn’t be happy if I killed Paul I was prepared to drive them as quickly as I found to be safe, rather than with abandon. Not that I’m crazy, I’m just a normal bloke who wanted to go rallying, but I went OK the other day when the stages were good.

So, there’s a lot to be done before tomorrow, but I really, REALLY need to get a good night’s sleep – I’m very tired, and this isn’t a good way to start any event. We have a 150km road section and our start time is 07:41. There is one upside to tonights trek to Cardiff and back – at a constant 50mph (didn’t see any point in tanking the car), it did the 100 miles on 14.5L of fuel, which is 31mpg. Looks like the mapping on part throttle we did will pay off, as the road sections will at least be doable without too many refills (it was doing around 10mpg before). Not sure about the stage consumption, but we’ll worry about that tomorrow. Although calculating it from a 3k stage will be hard. Let’s hope it’s all thawed out up there anyway.

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.