Skoda Rally Blog

We left at 6:30 as it was about a 2 hour drive to the first stage for us to Recce (Radnor), and we wanted to get there before everyone else starting queueing up.  When we got there (at 8:30), we stopped at the stage arrival, bemused by the lack of anyone else there including marshals.  A couple of cars turned up, and then drove past, and then we realised why, we should have gone to the stage start instead!  There were only 5 cars in front of us, so it wasn’t the end of the world.  A bit after 9am, we got going into the stage.  This year we’re not making notes from scratch, we’re using Patterson’s (as they are available for all the stages we’re doing, aside from Cardiff) and going to add notes where we think it’s appropriate.  As soon as we got going I realised just how rusty I am.  I’ve never claimed to be a great driver, but I felt completely lacking in confidence – there just seemed to be no grip, and I didn’t feel in control at all.  The massive upside was that it’s far easier to modify notes than it is to make them from scratch – within about a mile I said to Paul that they were probably the best £70 we’d spent in a long time, as it can be quite demanding to describe everything you’re doing and seeing, plus having to drive at the same time.  Despite my reservations about my driving skills, we weren’t being caught (which was good), and as the stage went on I felt a bit better; there were some places that were really slippy (including a 5 right which was already noted as slippy which I wanted to go to defcon 1 on), and other places where the grip was really good.  Some of the places where logging has taken place were the worst, as you would expect, but overall it went fairly smoothly.  At the end of the stage (a very muddy little section) I thought it would be a good idea to go round again – not because I thought we needed to add anything else to the notes (most of the changes we made were personal opinion and things such as to ‘hook’ certain places or to emphasise other instructions), and certainly not for Paul’s benefit – he was as ever calm, composed and controlled!
Run two was better – the ‘fear’ seemed to be subsiding a bit, and having seen the stage already meant there was nothing too bad, although one bit where Paul announced “You wouldn’t want to be going off there…”, followed by “because it would be OVER.  Dead!” was really confidence-inspiring!  The slippy section I’d marked before saw us slide off the road (as I was going a fair bit faster this time), and nerf the bank as we did it.  No problem, just a bit of fun.  The run seemed to be over fairly quickly, which was good, and we did make a few little changes as well.  It was really handy having my phone running in the car as I have a speedo on it, which has an alarm you can turn on – the recce has a speed limit of 80kph, and severe fines if you are caught speeding, so I wanted to avoid that.  But what also struck me was the speed we were doing; the recce Felicia isn’t at the peak of good health and therefore is a bit gutless, but once it gets going it keeps up a decent speed, and it was interesting to see corners being taken at 40-45mph when we weren’t really going for it at all.
Next up was the trio of Hafren, Sweet Lamb and Myherin which will make up Friday’s stages, and they were the ones most severely affected by the bad weather in 2008, plus Myherin was where we came across the accident involving the Turkish Fiesta crew (I am pleased to report that they are both OK, although still needing treatment from the accident).  First up was Hafren, and on the way to the stage I noticed a problem with the car – on a couple of right-handers the back let go a bit early; first was when I was trying to keep up with an Evo who was on recce (yes, I know, but I do get carried away sometimes), so I put it down to that, but when we got nearer, there was a much lower-speed corner which had the same effect, so I thought we had a rear puncture.  This was confirmed on arrival by Tom Cave who’d been following us in (thanks Tom), and I was a little worried as we didn’t have a decent spare.  However, my slippy bank antics from earlier in the day had come to haunt us – what had happened was the valve had been filled with mud as it didn’t have a cap on, and was leaking.  I cleaned it out (with some help from the start marshals there, as well as a couple of mouthfuls of drink to try to force the dirt out), and then we pumped it up.  The start marhals conjured up a valve cap for us, and I hoped it’d hold up.  In we went, and again it was a case of some areas were OK, some were slippy – very much so in places in fact.  However, it went pretty well for the most part – a few cases of losing the back of the car, but getting closer to driving properly which was good.  I also noticed that cornering speeds were improving, and taking better lines through hairpins was helping, and made notes to that effect on the… notes!
Sweet Lamb was next, via a very rough link road section (more like an off-road course than rallying), and suddenly we were engulfed in steam. I feared the worsrt, but there was no place to pull over, and it turned out it was just a watersplash combined with our low speed making for a LOT of steam from the exhaust.  The stage itself isn’t a favourite of mine – it just seems to have cut up really badly in places, which is a pity.  The watersplash and jumps are fun though (although again with Paul’s call of “crest and jump… into that bank!” helping a lot).  Another link road and then briefly on the tarmac road itself (where the recce car suddenly seems smooth) and into Myherin.  This went well too, although up top seemed like another planet, with the massive wind turbines and the wind blowing pretty hard.  Plus what also seemed like another planet, we overtook a couple of cars – unheard of!  Overall it went pretty well, and it was interesting remembering the last time we drove on it, when it was very icy (remember that even Loeb got caught out, rolling his recce car on this bit).  The end section is fast and flowing, and a good way to improve my confidence, which was slowly returning, getting the speed better on the 1 and 2 corners (which are fastest in the notes we use).
Once we’d done that we went back round to do all three again.  There’s not much to note here, other than lunch – we’d had a plan to take a flask of boiling water and make Pot Noodles (as we don’t have the equipment to make hot food at the remote service), so we decided to try that.  Paul started out by decorating the car with the “dust” from his Pot Noodle, which gave me a laugh and made it look very odd.  The water wasn’t hot, so the Pot Noodles were… disgusting!  Something hot though, at least.  This was all made a lot more amusing for me as Paul had forgotten his hat so decided to make do with a towel wrapped round his head – the site of him struggling with a Pot Noodle with a towel round his head, complaining about how cold it was tickled me.  It was a towel from a gym that he never went to, but was given it when he joined, so he reckons the towel cost him a couple of thousand!
Anyway, the next three runs went well – again, getting a bit quicker and taking slightly less moronic lines through the corners, and the alarm on the GPS speedo went off far more often, so we were clearly going better, another good sign.  The back tyre stayed up (so make sure you have your valve caps on, kids), and off we went back to Cardiff, to collect the WRC tracker from ISC.  The traffic was hideous, so it took a LONG time to get there, and when we arrived at just after 6pm… No-one was there.  They should have been there until 7pm, but had clearly all naffed off.  Brilliant.  We phoned the competitor liaison officers, and got no reply, and left messages to that effect.  We’d taken at least an extra hour going to Cardiff for no reason at all.  And now, folks, I’m going to have a moan.  ISC have been utterly useless every time we’ve had to deal with them, and it looks like this year is no exception; the schedule is extremely tight for people like us, and we made a big effort to get there to pick up a piece of equipment that is no use to us that we are forced to carry, and if it gets damaged, we are left with a massive bill for it.  We have since been told that they will be open until 3pm, but given that we’ll be out on recce, this could be “interesting”.  As far as I see it, they should have been there when they were supposed to, and if they weren’t there to dispense their equipment, then they will need to be available at a time that suits us, not the other way round.  Sermon over.
So, aside from issues with ISC-T (and I at least know what the T stands for now), it’s been a GOOD day.  Tomorrow will be a LOT busier, but with any luck it will go as well, and this time tomorrow we will have recce’d all the stages, been scrutineered, and be ready to go.  Even the hot water in the house is working!