Skoda Rally Blog

Here are some pictures from Rally GB 2006

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Well, I might as well! Some nice people have sent me some pictures they took – thanks to Kay and Simon (and Jules for the conversion and transfer) and Derek Mines for the in-stadium shot.

Next up, us in the stadium – it looks like a toy car in the school playground. Appropriate, I think….

And here are a couple I’ve taken of the mess the poor car got in. Mud, anyone? You can’t see it that clearly on the back of the seat, but trust me, I’ll always weld floor plugs in place from now on!

Well, it’s back to reality. I have to say, though, that this is something that I will never forget, a life-changing experience. There are many things I have learnt over the course of Wales Rally GB

• The marshals who man this event are fantastic. Their waving and clapping lifted my spirits every time we came past, especially towards the end of each day. Some of them said they’d been following us all the way, and they knew we had a class win before we even thought about it. Really appreciated.
• We can make our own notes. They even work OK with a bit of practice.
• A Felicia is a tough little car. Anyone who knocks Skodas is an idiot.
• The WRC and Rally GB might be “a shadow of its former self”, but anyone who hasn’t done Wales Rally GB really shouldn’t say it’s “easy”. It isn’t.
• It’s not over until it’s over. Saturday is proof of this.
• ISC are one of the most disorganised, useless organisations We’ve had the misfortune of dealing with. It took weeks and many phone calls made by Paul (peppered with excuses such as “she’s at lunch”) to be allowed to run the in-car camera, and when it came down to it, the ISC people were NEVER around to get the sticker to say we had a camera in the car. In addition, the guy who deals out their trackers is a miserable smart-arse, and they are a bunch of crooks for charging £150 for an aerial you can buy for £10 on the ‘net, and in my case charging £30 for a 150mm piece of 2mm diameter metal rod. This, frankly, is extortion. Dave Richards should be ashamed of himself and his miserable company. Keep the £30. I’ve got a clear conscience. You can’t have.
• Even in my little car, doing an event like this is expensive. An itemised list of the true cost will follow (when I can work it all out), but I think the event itself cost around ?4000 to do, all inclusive.
• The big boys are in a totally different world, both in terms of ability, which should never be underestimated, and car – seeing the Focus WRC in bits showed me that they are competing on a totally different level. It’s a work of art, and a fantastic machine; if only people watching could see the difference between them and ‘normal’ cars.
• I’ll never have the speed/guts to be a ‘real’ rally driver. Things scare me and I back off, probably way too early. But it was nice to hear others say they were scared too – not many seem to admit that, but the last stage really was scary in a little 2WD car
• Tony Jardine is bloody everywhere. It became a running joke whenever he appeared – “Guess who I just saw”, etc.
• Sometimes achieving your dreams isn’t a disappointment. It wasn’t what I expected (harder in some ways, easier in others) but in many ways it was a lot better. I certainly feel a lot better about it all than I thought I would after the bent wheel in Stage 2!
• It was really great to see a “good luck” thread on the britishrally.co.uk forum, and realise that people had been checking the results to see how we’d been getting on, in several cases caring more about us than the big boys!

There are lots of other things, but at the moment I’m still hyper about the whole experience. I should finally get a chance to watch it on TV tonight (as I had it recorded), so it will be really interesting to see (a) how the real drivers do the corners I did (b) if the conditions look as bad on TV as they did in person and (c) if having been there makes watching it more ‘real’ – I think it will.

I’m not going to look at the car until at least the weekend after next, aside to give it a clean off. I’ll take a picture of the inside next time I’m there in daylight, just to give an idea of just how messy the poor little thing got.

Next up is the Sunseeker, but I need a break first, completely, from the car and everything else. And a few grand. And an extra 50 bhp!

A slightly earlier start for Sunday, but still not hideously so, although I’d still only managed about 5 hours sleep as I was worried about the car. When we got to service it turned out I had more to worry about – the Lintons’ tent had killed itself during the night and managed to dent Steve’s van and smash the back window. I was devastated – I know it wasn’t my fault, but I felt terrible about it. I didn’t feel terrible about what had happened to our ‘tent’ – it had been blown to bits, quite literally. All the frame was there (although not quite where we’d left it, and a bit of the steel fence had bent!), but the top was now more of a flag than a roof and the side panel (with plastic window) looked like it’d been used for shotgun practice.

Oh well, never mind. We had plenty of space next to us as the next door guys had now left, and had to park the car out of the way as we had Mr. Officious suddenly telling us we’d get towed for no good reason. Oh good.

Got to Parc Ferme, and the car started on the button, probably the best it has ever done so. It wasn’t even steamed up inside. We checked out, and just did a few things we needed to (checking what we’d done last night, etc), and another disappointment made itself clear. The alternator over-charging had fried the in-car camera, so no more in-car for us. Gutted. Off to TC out for the last but two time, we hoped. And then a long run to SS14, Brechfa. This is a nearly 30km stage, which is very long. In fact, as it was later pointed out to me, this stage and Trawscoed between them are the same mileage as a BTRDA forest event, in just two stages. And we’d be doing that twice in the course of a day. I’d liked the recce of both (and it had been good to drive on the roads I’d seen many times on video), but was worried the steering was a problem – by the time I’d reached the arrival control my right hand was already numb, and 30km of forest wasn’t going to ease that pain at all.

Brechfa starts out with quite a rough, rocky section, but it manages to be slippery too, which is interesting! However, I was glad of the slippy, to be honest – if it’s wet and sloppy then as long as we don’t go off then we wont be having big, hard hits so hopefully the car will get through. The rest of the stage was good fun, although it seemed very long; I know it was around the 30km mark (probably more given the amount of wobbling about we did), but with the slow pace we have up hills (of which there were many), the dodgy steering (which was really notchy – rather than having a smooth action it would stick every 10 degrees or so, and be hard to turn to the right), my mechanical paranoia (which was reaching international level because we were getting towards the end), it seemed to take forever, and I thought we’d be overdue at the next control before finishing the stage. As it turned out, we had a reasonably leisurely drive before the next stage, Trawscoed

Trawscoed was the one we’d recce’d first on the recce day, so the notes weren’t as good as later-done stages as we got better as we went. But again it was a chance to drive on a legendary stage and also just have a good time, providing everything held up. The back suspension on the Felicia uses standard mounts at the top, and these have taken to rattling sometimes – they can go from being silent to rattling and silent again within a Km, and I really didn’t have time to sort out what the problem was, but nothing seemed to be ready to leave the scene just yet, so I tried to forget about it and keep the car on the road.

I really enjoyed this stage. It seems to have everything – tight sections, open, fast sections, seat-of-the-pants downhills, mind-stoppingly slow uphills, hooks, crests, cambers I could chuck the car into, everything. It was great, even with all the issues we had. There were some monumentally difficult bits though, one ‘quarry’ section in particular that still managed to be slippy AND rocky, with a long, messy uphill that again had the LSD earning its keep; without I think we could have been in trouble, again! Whenever we got to a group of spectators they seemed surprised to see a car this late anyway (there was a 4 minute gap in front of us due to drop-outs), and I think even more surprised to see a little N reg Felicia trying to pick its way between the boulders and get to the end. The last section is deceptive – I kept thinking “we’re near the end”, and one time asked Paul, but there was still 10Km to go! The end was pretty slippy – it looks like a road that gets a fair bit of use, but the rain seemed to have soaked down, and it was very muddy, but this helped us as there was less to hit, but gave a few scary moments. But we made it out, and saw quite a few hadn’t, including the Lintons who were pulled over to one side of the road (a blown head gasket, it appeared). We got to the finish control with a running car and a dead arm, but more importantly with 2 stages to go and all the wheels pointing the right way.

Back to service, and once in we had a quick look at the front end. The tyres were totally worn out on the inside edge, so the bent front end was causing issues there – it had behaved itself reasonably well, all things considered, but we decided to re-toe it so there was less chance of getting punctures, and realised we didn’t have many wheels left – no new ones anyway, so we put the bent ones (both of which were little-worn) on the back as the dents wouldn’t trouble the tiny drums on the back, and they’d held pressure for at least a day. We then found the best tyres left and put them on the front, and set off for what would hopefully be the last two stages of Wales Rally GB for us, meaning we could actually get a finish.

On the road section I found a problem though, the toe was now really wrong – it was jumping all over the place, just like it did when I first put the diff in and the front wasn’t tracked properly. I thought it best to wind some more toe-out in and risk killing the tyres – the way it was it could have lurched and taken us off the road. It only took about 2 minutes to sort out as we had the tools in the toolbag (at the top, no less), and now it was much better. We also saw many of the front runners on their way back, and plenty of people out to see them drive past. They all waved to us too, as everyone had done all weekend. Whenever I could, I’d wave back, and Paul always did so.

Brechfa 2 was taken at much the same pace as run 1 – it had been raining, and was wet and slippy, but not too bad again. The numbness in my arm was now replaced by a burning, painful sensation and meant that I needed to let go of the wheel (with one hand!) on any straights (of which there were few) and open and close my hand to try to stop it from getting worse. However, the slippyness meant that the car had a couple of moments all on its own on some straights, which was quite unnerving, so I ended up deciding to grin and bear it. And once more I think everyone thought it was all over before we came through as there were several times we surprised people as we came into view, probably because the car is so quiet as well as the delay before our arrival. One had a “safety” tabard on, which we thought was funny. Momentarily, anyway! But we made it to the end, and now we only had 1 stage and then some road mileage to go.

On the way there, Paul commented on the moments we’d had, and said it was better to take it easy and really just go for a finish rather than chuck it down the road for the sake of going a bit faster, and I did agree with that. This stage was treacherous; the most slippy I have ever encountered (although that’s not saying a lot, but if you’ve never driven on clay-ey mud then you might not appreciate just how bad it can be), there were several places where I thought it was all over. We’d been told at the arrival control that there were FOUR cars off at one junction, so we made a note not to do the same. When we arrived there (downhill), it was clear to see why – without knowing it we would have been off as it was ridiculously slippy, although those who had gone off had been sensible enough to stand where we could see them as early as possible and give us some warning. Without braking 50% earlier than usual, we’d have joined them, even having only been doing about 50mph down the hill. Thankfully we got round, and once more we had to take an age to get up the slippy hill sections, which led to the marshals jumping up and down in sympathy and clapping when we finally got going fast enough to use second gear, but again once the car got going it went well.

By now most of the spectators seemed to have gone home, but we came round the top of one section and there were a few left who had braved the horrible weather and seemed startled to see another car coming round a bend, although this one had a foot-deep rut all the way round so we had to take it easy round there too. The downhill sections were good, but there was something to come – there was a right-hand hairpin followed by an easy left, but trying to get on line left us over to the right, and the car started to spin. We were doing about 40 or so at this point, but the problem was there was a drop on the other side of the road. And then some trees. It was probably over in a second or so, but I had time to poo myself, say “we could be off”, and then try to get it back. Fortunately as soon as the wheels found some grip the car went in the right direction, and all was well again. We had about 10Km or so to go, and I backed off as that was enough. THere was no reason to crash and not finish – I don’t think it was really grannying it on this last bit (still needed the notes) but we could have gone faster. But that was probably true of the entire day, if not the whole event.

We came round a right hander, into a left-hand hairpin, and over the finish. We’d done it. Finished all the stages of Wales Rally GB. Now we needed to get to Cardiff, so after a brief stop at the TC to have a chat, we set off, through the Passage Control (not sure why this was there), and on the way back. This time there were no crowds, everyone had seen the big boys through and gone home, probably to watch it on the TV!

We got back to service to find that we had to remove the WRC tracker in 20 minutes before handing it in and going to Cardiff. Here is where the weekend turned a bit sour, although Paul’s advice helped. The UHF antenna for the tracker is a magnet-mounted one, with a simple steel rod (2mm diameter) as the aerial itself, held in via a grub screw. Nothing special, in short. The price list said ?150 for this. And the aerial element itself was missing, because their grub screw had come loose – we’d not hit anything, rolled the car or whatever. Great. We bagged it up (in the bag I’d marked sarcastically “WRC Tracker Plastic Bag, £44.87”, not so funny now….), which the ISC people had said we HAD to return it in on the notice. The queue was massive for handing them in, so as soon as we got to the control and handed the card in, Paul went to get in the queue. I waited just outside the control (once the card had been returned), and the Control official (who had signed the card) came out to tell me I was cheating, because there was only one of us in the car. I told him Paul had been in the car when we handed the card in, as per the letter of the rules. However, he walked off, and then came back to basically tell me I was a liar – he said “well, I don’t think he was, and neither does the other guy” – the reason for this was that I’d handed the card to the guy out of my side of the car as it was nearer for him, and he had a crutch – we’d been doing this all weekend. This comment was made despite him having been inside a booth with no windows and unable to see if even I had been in there, let alone Paul, and let’s remember it was getting dark at this point too. Don’t get me wrong, I know the guy has a job to do, but his attitude really annoyed me – if he thought we weren’t in the car, he shouldn’t have signed the card, not what he did.

Then I found out that the ISC people had decided to charge me £30 for their crappy piece of aerial. This irked me, but Paul wisely said not to bother about it – it was £30 in a total of £6000 or something, so I shouldn’t let it spoil my memory of it. They were a bunch of petty crooks, and not worth worrying about. Let them have their £30.

So, it was off to Cardiff. Which seemed to get further away every time we drove it, the motorway just got longer and longer. But after what seemed like an eternity, and the car making every noise known to man and smelling of gearbox oil more heavily than ever before, I saw the top of the stadium. If it came to it, I’d push the thing there now, I really would. We arrived via the front entrance this time, and drove down the ramp where the “alternator issue” had happened. This time, there was no problem. We drove in, and handed in the last timecard on the last road section. We’d done it. No matter what happened now, we’d finished Wales Rally GB.

Now it was weird – there was a finish ramp procedure, and we had to wait around for a while. Paul nearly died when he realised he’d run out of fags, so he went to the shop as there were quite a few cars to get through before ours. I started grinning like a fool, and walking up and down needlessly in the way that people with too much nervous energy do, usually before an interview or court appearance. One by one the cars disappeared, and those of us from “the back”, meaning Fin and Jamie, Kate and Paul and the Lintons had a good chat.

And then it was our turn, as the last car on the road, to take the finish ramp. I was a bit disappointed we were told not to get our of the car, but this was tempered somewhat when we pulled up to the ramp and I had a fun chat with Robin, who made reference to the “out of our depth” comment I’d made ages ago at the Sunseeker. Oddly, I didn’t feel out of my depth, just amazed we’d got that far. I’m sure it looked pedestrian from outside the car, especially after the likes of Gronholm, Stohl and Solberg had flown past, but it was anything but inside. And then there was a huge surprise. Colin Hilton (head MSA honcho) appeared at my door to give us a handshake, and TWO boxes. One was a small one, one a quite large one. We’d won class A5 (OK, we were the only one in it, but we still finished) and as a result we had a second trophy. We drove off the ramp, somewhat bemused, and past the last few hardcore fans (mostly the Linton’s wives, dad and service crew We drove into Parc Ferme with all the other cars that had finished, and then had a chance to look at what we’d been handed – firstly the small “finishers” trophy, which is a glass cuboid with a 3d trophy engraved inside it with the Wales Rally GB logo above and FIA and WRC logos below. It looked great. The A5 trophy was like the first, but bigger, with “Winner Class A5” on it.

We then got out of the car, locked up, and took the opportunity to act like grockles, taking pictures and video. The Millennium Stadium is huge. HUGE. I’ve never been to a football match or anything like that, but it really is enormous. I took a bit of a look at the top kiddies’ cars, and my suspicions of how different a WRC Focus is from the normal one was confirmed – they look nothing like a Focus from the front, the whole front end is actually quite different – the front wing extensions are MASSIVE. Some of the front cars looked a bit tired, but a few of them were immaculate – what looked like brand new bumpers were fitted, all shiny and without a chipped front edge.

As we walked out of Parc Ferme, a few cars that were using the “SuperRally” rules to finish were coming in. One was a Fiesta that was held together with ratchet straps –

another was a Hyundai that we’d seen being fixed by the service crew on the side of the road. OK, we made it there slowly, but we made it under our own steam! Paul got to walk down the players’ tunnel, which I think was cool for him being a Liverpool fan and this the site of their victory in the FA Cup, but alas the dressing rooms were locked.

Then the reality of the situation hit. We were stuck in Cardiff (as I’d predicted) and the cars wouldn’t be released for at least an hour and a half. Which meant logistical issues – the van and trailer were back in Swansea, with the twins, and we had no way to get there. Ideally one of the twins would have driven the van/trailer/recce car back to Cardiff, but that wasn’t an option – no trailer licence and no insurance. However, fortunately, my friend Juliet lives in Cardiff and she offered to pick me up so I could meet the twins (who were now on the M4 on the way in to give me the van keys) and then drive the whole shooting match back to meet Paul and go home. This worked out nicely, and Juliet has now been elevated to “legendary” status for offering to do (and indeed doing) this. And providing cookies too. Thanks Jules.

I said a massive thanks to the twins for everything they’d done over the last three days – without them we wouldn’t have finished, and it would have been much, much harder anyway. They’d done everything possible on the car, had food ready for us when we got back to service, sorted out little issues here and there, and helped us achieve a dream. I was really annoyed they’d been turned away from the stages on the first day with the service pass, but at least glad they got to see some action on the Saturday stages and the Millennium Stadium stage and show. And they seem to enjoy the whole servicing aspect, and it is an important part of the whole thing. The irony is that we didn’t really use much in the way of spares, and I could actually have driven the rally car home after the event, but there you go. If I’d not been prepared, I would have needed to be, and when it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing, it’s best to be prepared!

We got back to the service area (which seemed further away again), and it was a ghost town – hardly anyone left, apart from the remnants of the works teams, the spectator tents and the Lintons’ motorhome. Everything else was gone, and there was an eery feeling there as it was wet, a bit windy and quiet, aside from a regular “beep” being emitted from some piece of equipment in the distance every 20 seconds or so. I put the recce car on the trailer, said my goodbyes and headed off for Cardiff Gate services, where I met Paul, swapped the rally car onto the trailer and set off. The wind was scary, especially on the bridge, so I slowed down for much of the trip and didn’t get in until 11:55, by which time I’d consumed 2 cans of Red Bull, and many cookies and other assorted items of food. My arm was still killing, too.

Got the car from Parc Ferme (started on the button), and did the 10 minute service, which is really just to load up everything, check it over and get to the start control. However, I did notice that the floor behind Paul was beaten up by about 2 inches and the blanking plug had come loose, so the inside of the car was a bit muddy, including, well, everything. Even the WRC tracker. I siliconed it back in place, and then used a hefty amount of gaffa tape, hoping we wouldn’t take on too much water. However, I forgot to put the camera in the car, which I would regret….

So, it was off to Crychan 1. The weather was good – some cloud, but mostly sunny. When we got there there was a nice surprise – Paul told me I had to go into the toilets on his return. They were the poshest portable loos I’ve ever seen,complete with turned wood hand basins, and Pot Pourri! Someone knows how to live!

On the start line Paul took a couple of snaps of the clock, start arch, etc, and then we were off.

Crychan was the only stage we just had the one run at, so we needed to take a bit more care than usual and make any adjustments necessary. The main adjustment should have been “put some sunglasses on, Darren” as there were some sections where we were running into the sun but the corner was in darkness. One of them led to a half-spin (nearest thing I’d had to going off, yet) but the rest of the stage was really, really good fun – the notes were spot on and well called by Paul, and I think I drove about as well as I ever have done (these things are relative, after all) – the car was running well and actually pulling 3rd gear up some of the hills, and aside from some rough sections the stage hadn’t cut up too badly (the places where it had were odd, too – not where you’d expect). I had one surprise – a fiesta appeared from nowhere behind us, and the first thing I knew about it was him being alongside us at the exit of a hairpin – I could see NOTHING out of the mirrors and wasn’t really looking as we were supposed to be last on the road… Anyway, we made it to the end and then pottered off to Epynt 1.

When we’d recce’d Epynt I’d enjoyed it apart from one section at the top which had a series of ‘fast’ right/left bends, where the track was cut into the ground by about a foot. It was very, very hard, rocky and bumpy when we’d recce’d it, so I wasn’t looking forward to that section. The first part of the stage was excellent – we knew that uncle Fiesta was coming at some point and let him go past without causing either of us too much trouble (although he didn’t zoom off as quickly as I’d expect a car with three times our power to do). Then there was the ‘nasty’ bit, which I knew wasn’t a problem as soon as we got to it – it had flattened out a bit and the rocks seemed to be gone (although being in the rally car probably helped), so I went relatively quickly through there too, and the notes seemed spot on again, and I was getting some confidence in them. This was how it was supposed to be, I think. OK, we weren’t setting any records (uphill, especially), but it was good fun, and everything seemed to be working as it should. Having sunglasses on helped too!

Next up was Halfway 1, and again because of the International timing the Fiesta had to start behind us, but we worked out roughly when he’d get to us, and I concentrated on driving while Paul looked out for him as well as read the notes. And the driving went well – it was a great stage – the first section where there is some logging is a bit slippery and rocky, but after that it was all systems go, and the corners seemed to flow nicely, even the fresh air bends and slightly dodgy sections. Towards the end of Halfway, you cross a road and then head into some crests, some of which are straight, some have bends on, and some have ditches inside or outside. We’d noted these, and I then promptly nearly drove into one. Idiot! The rest of the stage seemed to be uphill, and was pretty slow as a result, although the downhill bits were taken with some relish (especially the bridge at the bottom), and it was good, good fun. On the way out we saw the Fiesta again, and this time it looked terminal.

Back to service, and thre was little to do aside from clean the inside of the car and put the lamp pod on – always a good sign! Oh, and I put the camera and some tapes in, ‘cos I didn’t want to miss out completely.

Crychan 2 went smoothly, largely a repeat performance, aside from the stage having cut up and being a bit more slippery, meaning there were a couple of slidy moments, one of which was on an exposed section and could have been quite messy if it’d gone wrong.

Epynt 2 was run in the dusk, and proved to be good fun again, I felt I was getting in the swing of things now, and although it was probably slower due to the conditions, I enjoyed it a lot, although I took too much of a cut when heading on to the long tarmac section and the car took exception to that treatment!

By the time we got to Halfway 2 it was basically dark, and there were some rattles from the front of the car, so I just checked the wishbones weren’t coming undone, and that ths strut tops were tight – no problems at all.

Off we went into the stage, and about 1km in, hit some rocks, and bang-bang-bang-bang again, just like stage 2. Bugger. It sounded like it was the left front again, so out with the tools, off with the wheel, etc. Took about 5 minutes. Drove off….

… bang bang bang bang bang. It was the right front! Took another 5-6 minutes to change it, and off we went. Handily the course closing car was behind us, and their lights made it much easier to change the wheel in the dark and rain. Thanks guys! It took a bit of time to get back in the swing of things, but it went well after a while, and this was a stage I really liked, apart from the seemingly endless uphill runs. Over the road, into the crests, and got them right this time. A few more turns, and up to a crest where you turn left onto a section of tarmac, and BANG! Hit it really, really hard. And the steering was incredibly stiff. I’ve never driven with a diff and a puncture, so I wasn’t sure if that was the problem or if it was something worse. We made it to the end (passing Fin McCaul’s stricken Polo right by the finish), but very slowly as turning the wheel was very hard work. We had a while before going to cardiff, so I got out in the rain and tried to take a look with the help of someone’s torch. All I could see was mud, so there wasn’t a lot to see. We got going and stopped at a Petrol station where several of the others were (Fin appeared in a bit), and jetwashed the front end off (underneath) so I could see what was wrong – there was nothing obvious, no bent wishbones or arm, so I figured either the front subframe had bent and was putting the rack under tension, or the rack itself was bent. Either way it was going to mean trouble, but I wanted to at least get to Cardiff – it was a fairly long run so we set off and the sight of the stadium’s white support steelwork was a welcome one. However, when we stopped at lights, I could smell gearbox oil, and feared the worst. When we got to the holding control there was another jetwash stop and the guys kindly cleaned under the car when asked too as I could see having much work to do in the service, and maybe using the restart rule to keep us in. There was some leaking, but I couldn’t see where from, and the steering was still very heavy.

We watched the MPH show, which struck me as being very badly lit (it seemed nearly dark in there) and the sound was terrible, but that’s just me having a busman’s holiday. It was OK, but seemed more “Matchams Raceway” than WRC. Maybe that’s just me. Then the cars started the stage again and I took the opportunity to get a chinese takeaway after Paul Heath came back with one for him and Kate, which was a good call – not missing out on dinner would keep us going for the long service that looked to be ahead. However, I missed Stuart Jones putting on a good show removing his rear bumper on the barriers, but didn’t miss car 88 (I think) losing his exhaust and dragging it behind him for half the stage – that was most amusing. I was amazed how many people left, which seemed odd, but there you go. I caught some spectators taking the mickey out of the Felicia at the back of the queue, but I doubt their cars would make it as far as it had.

Finally it was our turn to get into the stadium (later than it should be, surprise surprise), and as if by magic, another problem appeared. The alternator light was on, so the changed alternator looked to have packed up. I was trying to plan ahead at this point, so thought the best thing to do would be to get a bump start at the beginning of the Millennium Stadium stage, and then see how far we could get with sidelights on. So we did this, and did the MS stage as well as I think could be expected. Paul didn’t need to call it as I’d seen enough already to know what to do, and instead he was on handbrake duty. I got it wrong first time, but second time went well, and we went over the flying finish and onto the stop ramp and I just HAD to get out of the car and give it the two-armed salute. I applauded the crowd to thank them for staying to the end (good sportsmanlike conduct instruction from Paul), and then off we went, hopefully to Swansea.

On the way there I noticed something – the dashboard lights were bright. I mean, really, really bright. So I put the (usually dim) headlights on, and they, too, were bright. We might be OK, apart from the horrible smell of hot electronics. I just hoped Skoda had over-engineered the ECU to deal with this sort of situation, and got Paul to disconnect the in-car camera in case it fried that, and the WRC tracker too. We made it back to service with plenty of time to spare, although the wind was getting up in a big, big way – the arrival control tent was looking ready to take off. But we had other issues to deal with

Service was quite frantic, as we needed to remove the steering rack ball joints to see if the rack was the problem and didn’t have one, so Paul managed to go and get one, and then we could see it was the rack. It now made sense – I’d hit it hard with a lot of left lock on, so the right hand end of the rack was extended at the time, and therefore bent when we hit it. Now turning onto right lock was really tight, but it was tight throughout as well, and I remembered I’d been told about the subframe bending and tightening the rack up, so I got Anthony to loosen one end of the rack clamp up and this helped. We couldn’t leave it like that, so it was just washered to space it out and bolted up. In this time, Chris had changed the alternator, and 40 minutes had expired, but we got back into service without any penalties. I had no idea how long it would last – in this trouble, the gearbox leak had been largely forgotten, although I now suspect it may well have been from the rack as topping it up didn’t take much at all.

Today was the day the rally proper started, although it seems an age since we turned up and set everything up. The twins (Anthony and Christopher Newton, our service crew) arrived last night, so we had breakfast and set off for the service area, which was buzzing. We drove through quickly but the twins took their time, and we forgot that the novelty had worn off for us, being in an area with the gods of rallying….

Got the car started up, sorted out the last few issues (including putting the spare wishbones and driveshafts firmly cable-tied in place), and off to the start it was. As I’ve said before I get pretty worried before an event, but once we’ve actually started I calm down a bit. But still, waiting to go into the first time control I still wonder if I’ve done enough on the car to make it through. And this, of course, is a far bigger test than any other yet. Got the time cards, and then a new experience, having the tyres marked, which is to stop illegal servicing. And off to the first stage – the road section wasn’t too long and we off the motorway quite quickly….

…. to find the grinding noise from last night was back! Again, I seemed to be blighted by the curse of first stage failure, but we’d not even got to the stage start yet. But we had to get on, and I decided to get the car there and then take a look. But before we’d even got there, we passed an Impreza that had broken down. Oh dear, not good to not even get to the first stage. We parked up and then had the front wheel off again, but found nothing – it just sounded like something grinding and the other guys there just said to ignore it – it’d work itself out and no point in taking it apart. So I took their advice and did exactly that. It didn’t return.

And then we were off! Stage one went pretty well although the car was all over the place in parts – if we were off line, then it got hairy very quickly, although we’re just trundling along in comparison. Several things occurred to me – firstly that the diff means you can really get out of corners better, and not waste what little power the car has spinning the wheels. Secondly, the new suspension worked really well – bumps that would have been teeth-jarrers with the HP stuff on were fine, so I was pleased with that. THirdly, not a lot of grip in places, with a pretty lairy back end. Apart from that, it went well. Saw several cars off or stopped though, which was a real surprise.

Off to stage 2 – the road section was quite short, but the actual access road to the forest is pretty long, about 6km, so you think you’ve got there and then realise there’s a fair way to go. But it’s always reassuring to reach the other competitors; although we’re slow and it means the timings are tighter for us than the quick boys, we were seeing a few cars in the queue, and a couple of people out of order already, including a Fiesta (125, I think). He didn’t seem bothered, parked up and had a smoke!

Then stage 2 started, and it was a fair bit bumpier than the one before, and had changed more since the recce, although some bits were for the better, and the “mistake” we thought was in the notes on the second run wasn’t a mistake at all – it read just fine. I took it easy on a couple of dodgy bits (where you go through gates, for instance), but didn’t take my own advice on a square left which was quite rocky. We hit something really hard, and had the sound that I didn’t want to hear, a road-speed related knocking sound which sounded like only one thing.

The end of the rally.

I pulled over when it was safe, and tried to have a look, but I’d pulled to the left of the road, and the noise was coming from that side, so we had to go up the road a bit, and then press the button on the tracker to say we were OK.

Out with the triangle and the OK board, and then jack the car up and take the wheel off. I couldn’t see anything wrong with the hub, driveshaft or the wishbone. Disc looked OK. I was confused, and just thinking it was the end of the rally, and so soon. Just for one crappy rock.

I looked down at the ground, and saw something really good. The wheel was dented, on the inside of the rim, and it had been knocking on the steering arm. It might just mean a change of wheel could do it, so Paul got the wheel out, I put it on, and got everything back in the car, and got ready to go. I reckon this took about 5 minutes in all, but it seemed like a lifetime. Put the car in gear, pulled away, and there was no noise. It was all fine!

It took about 5 minutes of driving before I was back in “driving” mode, but eventually I calmed down (Paul commented on this on one straight), and we made it to the end of the stage OK, although I took it easy in a few places again as I didn’t want a repeat, and the car sounded a bit rattly. And the Tracker wasn’t happy about us stopping on stage, despite having done the right thing.

I had thought the delay on the stage would mean we’d be late, but we made it in time, even had time to check what the rattling was – turned out it was the damper top bolt which I didn’t have a spanner for! Pliers had to suffice, and did OK.

Stage 3 went well, and we had a good time – the Walters arena at the top had actually dried out a bit and smoothed over, and we had fun through there, and there were a LOT of people in there, so hopefully they didn’t think we looked too inept – I can assure them that we might have looked slow after all the others, but we were giving it some effort. The rest of the stage was good fun, and it hadn’t cut up as badly as I’d feared. There were quite a few cars off here too, although everyone had OK boards out which was a bonus.

Then it was back to service, which was just fixing a few issues, and eating a hot god in lieu of lunch, and back out again.

Each repeat stage was much the same as the first, although they had cut up a bit in places, so there were some “follow the ruts” moments, and getting off line was very slippy indeed and best avoided. As time went on, it was getting a bit dark, and the lamp pod was badly aimed which didn’t help, neither did the mist that hung between some of the trees – on Stage 6 this was so bad in a couple of places we couldn’t see very much at all, and had to really take it slowly. We also got caught and passed by the Lintons in car 136 who we are servicing next to and sharing a generator with; they’d had a few problems, and we saw them on the road section on the way back with cooling issues, so we gave them our 2 litre bottle of tesco’s value water we had for just this kind of thing – the car took the whole lot so they were lucky to get back to service.

So were we, on time, as a policeman had decided to ‘shepherd’ a slow-moving car (not in the rally) to a petrol station, meaning no overtaking and losing over 5 minutes behind him doing 15 mph. Great. Just about managed to get a jet-wash, check in and then go to service.

Service involved sorting out the sumpguard noise that had developed, finding some gearbox oil on it (although only a bit so hopefully this is OK as there’s little sign of a real leak), and changing the alternator, plus various small bits. Took 40 of the 45 minutes though, and then a new experience – checking the car into Parc Ferme, with all the big boys, some of whom had very secondhand looking cars. OK, we’re slow, we’re cheap, but look at it this way – we’ve not killed the car, we’re still in it, and pound for pound, we kick ass!

I just hope day 2 goes as well!

I’ve had some ‘interesting’ moments at the beginning of rallies before, and this turned out to be no exception. What i mean by that is little mechanical issues that just seem to pop up at the wrong times and ruin my state of mind. We got to the service park for around 6pm, as we had nearly an hour’s drive to Cardiff for the ceremonial start (which is really a PR exercise – it has no bearing on the rally itself, and is untimed), but you have to be there 45 minutes before your due time or face a fine of ?500. The first thing that worried me was that the whole service park was deserted, and I was worried that we were late, but we overtook some others (on trailers) on the M4. BUt about half a mile from the Stadium, there was a HORRIBLE noise suddenly coming from the front of the car, a screeching sound that didn’t alter with power, braking or steering. Typical. We parked up, and jacked the car up, and I got the wheel off, and couldn’t find anything. We spun the wheel, still had the noise, took the wheel off again and it stopped. It sounded like the brake backplate, and we found a stone under the hub, so it could have just been that trapped in there. Hope so, anyway.

We had a couple of hours to spare and spent most of the time chatting with friends who’d turned up (thanks Juliet!) and the parked up cars left one by one, after the ‘big boys’ there were a lot of ‘lesser’ cars, all of which I would love to drive – it’s odd how people think the cars aren’t that special when really all the field are. Well, nearly all of them! Had a couple of people who were amazed the car was still in Homologation, but there you go!

Then it was time to drive up the ramp and queue for the ceremonial start, which was running quite late. We had to get out of the car, have our pictures taken and have a quick (under a minute) interview. The commentator there was the same one as on the Sunseeker, and he remembered that we’d put “We’re out of our depth here. JUst wait and see how out of our depth we are on Wales Rally GB” so there was some comment on that, and the usual “get to the finish” encouragement. I hope that we will see Robin again on Sunday!

And then we were off, with the few people who were still there cheering which was really heart-warming, thanks for that if any of you read this! We headed off up Westgate street, and actually had the Police stop traffic for us which was nice. Then the same old motorway slog to the service park, having filled the car up ready for tomorrow.

At least I hope it’s ready for tomorrow. We have a 10:40am start, so I could get a lie in.

Except for one thing. I have not slept well in over a week now. I never do when I’m worried about things, and this has been a lot of effort, so I’ve not had over 6 hours on any night, and 5 has been more like it. There are a lot of people who say that this event is a piece of cake now, and “not like the old days”. I can’t comment on that, of course, but what I can say is that it’s Thursday, at 22:43 as I type this. I have _never_ been this tired in my life – I am mentally drained, thankfully physically all my time at the gym has paid off as I feel good in that respect, but I’m pooped. And the event proper hasn’t actually started. I don’t know much, but I know this isn’t a piece of cake.

Last night’s work on the car meant that there wasn’t that much to do to it this morning to get it ready for scrutineering – just getting the extinguisher cables finished off, fitting the WRC tracker of doom, and a few little bits and pieces. One big surprise was the WRC tracker – it didn’t take long to fit at all, the power lead being the biggest issue as it needed extending. The LEDs came on (I know not what they meant as it was never explained), and that was it, really. Except we’d forgotten about drilling the block and head for the sealing wire so we can’t take the head off – this is a Super Rally requirement, so it had to be done, alongside a hole to allow fixing of chassis to roll cage so we can’t replace it with the spare one we happen to carry around. We were also told to drill the sump flange so that could be sealed. And then it was off to scrutineering. Firstly, noise test. Now, I’d removed most of the guts of the exhaust, and yet it still registered 81dB, which is way under the limit. Way, WAY under. Then a new experience, having the car weighed, which, it turned out, was 140Kg over the minimum, so comfortably so. Then scrutineering which was done by the guy who has been at Caerwent every time I’ve been there. Previously I’ve had some issues with some of his comments (such as putting bubble wrap on spotlamp mounts as it will stop the car hurting people!), so I was worried. Needn’t have been, really, only issue was having to put tape on the positive battery terminal – apart from that it was all OK, and the sealing was done by a very jolly chap who told me the sump didn’t need to be. Good job it wasn’t hard to get to then!

I always feel relieved after scrutineering ‘cos that’s the last thing that’s going to stop you starting an event. So we walked round the service area a bit, and had a look at the big boys. I can’t believe how little a new WRC car has in common with a road-going version – it really isn’t the same car at all. The Fords have a MASSIVE guard that seems to cover the entire underside of the car, which must make it very strong and also very easy to get over the huge bumps, rocks and ruts that they create. Pity we don’t have one….

Then it was shakedown for non-priority drivers. I just wanted to drive through the stage once as the rally car hasn’t been driven in “anger” by me for a long time, and although the recce meant I could get back in the swing of things (being the same car, made this really worthwhile), I’d not driven with the LSD on gravel. When we got there, first thing was to tell the person behind that we were going to be very slow, so to take an extra minute to start, which they seemed happy to do. We set off from the line (with massive, MASSIVE ruts at the start line), and I got back into it pretty quickly. Not great speed, as I didn’t have any idea of the stage (no recce for us mortals), I didn’t want to break the car either, so just went at about 50% really, and it was good. Very rutty and very rocky in places, but we got there, which is good enough. Back into service, a last nice surprise, being jetwashed clean by two guys, which made far less work for later. And that was it, really. Time to go back to the B&B, after taxing the car as it runs out tomorrow!

We started out early, as time was clearly going to be a problem, so we left the B&B around 6:20, to get to the first stage (Brechfa) at 7:30 or so. However, on the way there Paul did some work on something I’d been toying with for a while – I thought that when you looked at the map it looked sensible to go to Brecfha first, then Trawscoed and then the obligatory “three-stage shuffle”, but wondered if it was best to go to Trawscoed first, partly because few people would go there first. Paul worked out that the distances covered wouldn’t be that much more anyway, so we went there, or rather to “Trousers” as Paul was now calling it.. Good idea as when we got there we were only behind one car. Ideal! This was a LONG stage, and the weather was pretty murky, especially deep in the forest where it seems to have a mind of its own. However, there was one part of the stage where I recognised a long hairpin where (I think) Markko Martin did a really great sliding entry. I attempted to mimic this with some left foot braking, but to little effect. One thing that was having a big effect, though, was the sumpguard. Now when I fitted it I was quite proud of the job I’d done, but I had made one error – it’s about 2″ lower than it should be. As a result it hit a LOT of things on the way round, and dragged up stones too. Very noisy (and it seemed to be getting noisier), and on the second run the exhaust started rubbing on it between gear changes. I started to worry that the timing of Crychan might be the least of our worries – breaking down would ruin the whole plot!

On to Brecfha (now named “Breakfast” by Paul), and more of the same – a reasonable first run, lots of interesting weather, nothing too scary (at the mortal speeds we were doing it), and bangy-scrapey-crash from the sumpguard. I feel obliged at this point to say that this was the best stage – certainly very friendly marshals at the arrival control! Second run was good too, and we’d missed nearly all the traffic here too, although we were behind schedule, despite making what I felt was good speed on the second run, only stopping a couple of times to fix errors in the notes.

The car was messy by this point….

Now it was on to Crychan, although first up was a visit to a petrol station. I think without Sat Nav we would have been in trouble, but with it it was no problem at all. Unlike finding the entry to Crychan which seemed to elude many, including a Fiesta crew who were very, very lost. They ignored us saying we’d found it, which was a pity as we actually had done! In mind of the lateness (we were already 25 minutes behind the schedule that would have seen us 2 minutes late for the second run of Crychan), we made very careful notes in case this was the last visit. I was starting to have fun, although I find that driving and calling the turns is a bit mentally tiring, and if Paul asks a question something has to give, usually what I was thinking about at the time he asked. WE made it OK, and then it was off to Epynt, across the army ranges, seeing a few groups of squaddies on maneuvers in between.

Epynt was an odd stage – mostly good, but with a very hard, rough section in the middle, and also a long-ish tarmac section, the first place where I’ve had to make a real effort not to break the speed limit. The second run was a fair bit harder (especially on the rough section), but I was having fun, even if the car wasn’t! A couple of crews mentioned the noise, but we just nodded politely and carried on.

Halfway was next up, and found to be another nice stage. There were a few bits which were eye-openers (fresh air bends which would certainly be rally, if not life-ending if taken wrongly), but most of it was good – the calls were getting more accurate, and I was starting to get confidence that I’d called them right in the first place when it wasn’t clear what was happening. The back end of Halfway is quite ‘cresty’ and reminded me of Colin McRae 2005 on the xbox. It was very, very good fun. The second run was good too with us not being totally destroyed by someone in a Mitsubishi, and overtaking Tony Jardine in his Fiesta, although the end was slow being stuck behind an Army truck.

By this time, however, there was no way we could get back to Crychan for run 2, so we decided to trot off to Cardiff. And that was well worth it. Firstly it was nice to be ushered into the stadium, and also nice to get out and have a good stretch. But doing the stage was a game of two halves. The first run, my calls were a right mess as I was trying to drive too hard and not concentrating enough, partly ‘cos I was mentally already on Saturday night. So while we queued up for run 2, I re-called the notes from scratch, and this time when Paul called it, I went for it, and even got the back end all over the place. If we make it that far, and anyone has bothered to hang around, then I hope we’ll make ’em laugh if nothing else!

Then it hit me – we’d done ALL the stages. In a Skoda that I’d bought on eBay for ?400, had a quick look at mechanically (nothing needed), chucked a sumpguard and a set of old forest tyres on, and it had done Wales Rally GB, in essence. OK, the water pump sounds like it’s on its last legs, but that aside it’s done very well, I reckon. Maybe it’d be a good Endurance rally car….

Just had to go and do “Documentation”. This is one of the things I never look forward to – especially whenever you’re doing something at a new level, and this was certainly that. But we seemed to have been more prepared than some of the crews in front of us. While we waited for them to sort things out, I realised that i was behind Gwyndaf Evans, which was nice. And he seemed very friendly. We got everything checked, and we were OK. WE even got our coveted “Wales Rally GB” bags, which I was worried we’d been diddled out of.

Finally, back to service, to fit the new extinguisher pull, and all the stickers. Done as Stu says, using a water spray, you can get a really good job with no bubbles. The only problem was the high-visibility numbers for the rear side windows were made of crappy vinyl that didn’t stick very well – I hope they stay put or we’ll have a problem!

So, tomorrow, the final hurdle before the start – scrutineering. I _think_ I have everying sorted out, but there’s always something at a new level that can get you…. The one bonus is I’ve seen the process card already, and nothing in there has made me run away crying, so hopefully we’ll be OK. Tomorrow will tell!

After a reasonably early (but way too big) breakfast, it was off to do the recce on the first three stages. This was all new – firstly, we’d never done any sort of recce before, having always relied on either patterson’s pacenotes (on forest events) or just maps (for SV stuff), and secondly I’d never had to prepare a car for recce either, so wasn’t sure what to expect. When we finally got to the stage start (at 8am on the dot), two things struck us – firstly there was a huge queue, and secondly, there was a huge variety of cars – in front and behind us were a pair of Evo 8s, but there were people carriers, 4x4s and quite a lot of new-looking cars which could have been hire cars! Many were on standard road tyres, and looked to have less ground clearance than we did.

The queue moved quickly, and then we were off – time to start something that I’d been trying to prepare for months for by calling out roads wherever I drove. Paul wrote everything down, and we didn’t have to go _that_ slowly, apart from where things got a bit rough or there was something a little complex that needed to be noted. Another thing that struck me was that for the most part the first stage (Port Talbot) was pretty nice. Obviously it’ll cut up when used in anger, but I liked it – some of it was very pretty, and there was one bit with a huge drop-off to the right that went down to a lake that was fantastic looking but deadly at the same time. We realised it was the end of the stage when we came to some tarmac and then had to go back round again for the next run. For us this was more a case of reading the notes and seeing if they worked OK and refining everything, and it went pretty well; a few corners needed re-calling and notes adding (such as “don’t cut” or “hook”, etc), but overall there was little to do, and second time round I remembered quite a few bits of the stage. For us it’s quite a bonus as we effectively get to do the event twice – we won’t be going _that_ much faster in the rally car than on the recce!

However, at this point, I should note that the recce car has a lower sumpguard and ride height than the rally car, and there were some points where cringing occurred – the poor thing seemed to be taking quite a bit of abuse, although often with rocks hitting the floor or sumpguard it sounds a lot worse than it is.

The other two stages went smoothly too – the same routine as before, making the notes on the first run and then running the stage on the second, adding a few refinements. This stage and the next both had some ‘fresh air’ bends, which is one thing that I never get used to – I guess I have a strong self-preservation instinct. Or I’m just a big scaredy-cat. Either way, I don’t go flat out on those bits, but the rest was really good fun. The exhaust tailpipe slipped its mount a couple of times (fixed with cable ties a couple of times), but apart from that the car was happy, so we trundled off to service….

…. to find that the new service tent was dead. As a dodo. I think there may have been human intervention as it had broken all the cable ties and lost all the tie-down, and the frame was broken in some odd places, but even half an hour’s work with the drill and bolts just gave us a frame which didn’t work. So that’s that. ?92 well spent. Hmmm. Probably should have left it until Friday anyway, but lesson learnt.

On the upside, we’ve worked something out using some fencing we were told we could move which should do the trick as I don’t want to spend a whole load more money on some flimsy chinese piece of poo. And the generator has arrived and is all working OK.

I have to end this on a moan, though. Tonight we had to collect the WRC tracking unit, which we have been selected to fit to our car. This meant a trip to Cardiff (which is a pain in the backside anyway, as we have to go tomorrow, so why it couldn’t wait, I don’t know), but when we got there we were greeted by a couple of surly blokes who presented us with some paperwork for it, and handed a very tired-looking tracker unit and a bag of cables that they seemed surprised I wanted to check through. I did this because I saw the “replacement price list” – WRC tracker, ?2000! A cable, ?150! THat’s for a sodding cable with a crappy 3-pin plug on it. The guy gave me a lot of schpiel about how expensive the connectors were. I think I called his bluff by telling him that I used to wire up nuclear reactors and the like. ?10 for the connector I saw, maybe. Not ?150. Oh, and the WRC tracker power cable that I was told would be 3m long is more like 30cm. WIth two crappily-fitted crimps on. WEll shoddy, and I’m not impressed.

Moan over. It’s late, I have to be up in a few hours, and we have the uber-day tomorrow. So I need a good night’s sleep, as tomorrow is the longest day of the week, I think. The most demanding, anyway – 6 stages to recce, although Cardiff (should we make it that far!) should be relatively easy. However, the timing is really tight, so we can’t hang around.