Skoda Rally Blog

Today was the day of the first stages proper of the event, the most northerly of the lot, with Hafren, Sweet Lamb and Myherin, all run twice with a remote service at Builth Wells.  Our start time was 07:14, so we started the day with a great breakfast made by Al, and left the house about 6:30 to be down in service in time to pick the car up.

The rules of Parc Ferme mean we can get access to the car 10 minutes before our ‘due’ time at the control to get it started up, but given how the car wasn’t particularly happy last night I thought it would be best to leave it until we would be able to drive it straight out, which worked well – out of the car park fairly easily, and then we had 10 minutes for the morning service, which for us really just consists of checking the car over a bit, and loading up for the day – the time soon flew by and then we were due at the service out control – firstly to get a time but also to get out tyres/wheels marked, which involved a bit of trouble for Paul as he had to get out and remove the second spare so both could be marked.  Then we were off on the three hour plus road section up to the first stage of the day, Hafren 1, and it immediately became apparent that there was a problem – as soon as we were out on the dual carriageway, the car was missing and bucking around, with the engine cutting out seemingly randomly; by the time we were on the A470 it was running really badly, and seemed to just change from running OK to running really badly – it seemed better on full throttle but still didn’t run right.  When we got most of the way to the stage we filled the half-empty tank with fuel from another well known vendor (instead of the stuff that I put in yesterday which I will not mention, but it’s clear I’m not in a Ford!), and it seemed to help a bit, but the problem was still there.  There was a fair bit of time spare in the timing, so we stopped off at a village (which was already littered with rally cars) and went into a cafe (whose clientele was quadrupled by the presence of several rally crews including Tom Cave).  After a super-healthy sandwich of Bacon, it was time to go up to the stage, which we did, parking up a bit short of the control to get all set up with our HANS devices – this would be the first gravel stage I’ve done with a HANS on and I was a bit worried about it, but soon got strapped in OK, although Paul took a bit longer – typically it started to rain at this point!

Fun with HANS in the rain!

We headed into the stage, with the start crew pleased to see us (having helped us out on recce) and see us leave too!

Once we got into the stage it was immediately apparent that the car wasn’t running at all well – there just seemed to be no power at all compared to how it was running last week; it just wouldn’t rev out, and was really, REALLY slow.  But knowing Paul for as long as I have has rubbed off on me in some ways as we just said that this was how it is, so there’s no point complaining about it, we should just get on with it, so we did!  Aside from the lack of power and the consequent revving of the car in 2nd and 3rd gear all over the place (it would only pull 4th downhill, and 5th was unheard of!), the stage went well – corners were going well, and I was improving my lines round hairpins (which was even more important given the lack of speed), and we got to the end of the stage feeling like we’d done the best we could given what had happened.

Getting to Sweet Lamb wasn’t easy as the link road is crazy – really steep in one place, and like an off-road course, but we managed it after quite a lot of revving, and quite a lot of clutch slip.  But we got there OK, and with time to spare, so we got ready and then we were in.  Now, Sweet Lamb is loved by many, but on the two occasions I’ve driven it, it has been cut up something rotten, and half of it has just been a case of getting round without getting stuck on the sumpguard, but this time was a bit better – the hairpins were still really difficult to take at any speed, but the rest was looking OK, and we had a bit of a bash at the three jumps in a row, and the end result was that I can clearly tell the Proflex suspension is a world away from the Bilstein stuff we had on the car before.

Stage 3, Sweet Lamb - Rob Lees

There were a couple of cars stuck in the stage (I think a swift had had a drink from the river), but we got to the end OK, had a quick chat with WRC radio (bemoaning the lack of power), and then off to Hafren.  The out of Sweet Lamb was originally a stage, I believe, and it certainly looks like it, so it’s a fairly energetic drive, then some very smooth tarmac road round to the start of Myherin, a stage I was really looking forward to – firstly because we’d only really done a very limited part of it in 2008, and secondly because it’s a really good, long varied stage and I wanted to give it a good bash despite the lack of power!

The start didn’t go well – I don’t want to burn the clutch out, so it means once the car bogs down (which it does below 2500rpm), then it’ll be a slow process to get it going – this is about 12mph in first gear, but above that everything was fine.  We didn’t do it again on the rest of the stage, so that’s a bonus (and an incentive to keep going).  While the uphills were difficult again, some of the downhill stuff was great – I really felt I was getting more out of the car (again I think the better suspension helps here as the car just feels more stable at speed), and there’s a section at the top of Myherin where there’s a 5 left over a concrete base which then goes down into a couple of straights with a 2 left in the middle, and then through some posts into another 5 left, and in the past I’d be a bit cautious about the posts, but got it just right, and used the uphill sections to scrub speed off.  Later on there was a downhill into a hairpin left that I overshot – the brakes just didn’t work when I pressed them and we were lucky that it wasn’t somewhere nasty.  They worked fine after this, although there were a couple of other places that they didn’t work properly, so that went on the list of things to fix.  The last section of Myherin is quite fast and flowing, and again I tried to keep the speed up, trust the notes and commit to cornering at more speed.  Although I’m sure the times don’t reveal that, I think it’s probably the best I’ve driven ever; Paul seemed happy with it, and on the few times when we got close to spinning, he would say something like “you don’t want any more speed than that” or something similar.  And he was right!  Most of the time the back of the car was just moving about enough, and could be taken advantage of.  I also did a bit of left foot braking which really helped in some of the tighter corners, and did so after a lot of practice which finally seems to have paid off!

So, with those three finally done, something hit me.  All this week I have been somewhat nervy and worried, and at times like that I think “why the HELL am I doing this?” – it’s taken a year of saving up, and about six months of work, and I had been wondering what on earth I was doing. Until we got going.  No, it wasn’t perfect, but it was still an amazing feeling to drive through the forests, and come out of a classic stage knowing that you’d given it a go.  As I’ve already said, I’m sure the times don’t reflect that, with us already about four weeks slower than the front runners, but that’s not the only thing that it’s about, it’s the feeling of doing it, and that’s why I’ve neeeded to do this for one last time.

With those three complete, it was time to go to remote service in Builth Wells.  When we got near, we realised the car had a new noise, a sort of squealing which sounded like the front brakes or similar, as well as a suspension rattle which had reared its head during Sweet Lamb (actually on the mega-rough link road).  We stopped for fuel, and I had a quick look to see what the noise was – it wasn’t apparent, but nothing seemed too bad, so we went off to service, and had a number of people asking about us, and even an interview!  We got into service, and found that we’d been allocated Bay 1, which was the one that had just been vacated by Mr Loeb!  Ian and Al had come up trumps again, with everything laid out and ready to go.  We told them what was needed (mostly just to check out the rattle, which turned out to be a loose bolt, and also the squeal, which turned out to be the sensor for the terratrip, so I wasn’t worried about it as the brake disc will win that battle eventually).  I was then interviewed for BBC Wales TV, which was quite surreal – in between the panic of trying to fix the car – albeit with little wrong aside from the fuel which we could do nothing more about – talking to people about what we’d been up to and trying to be coherent was just plain odd, but a good experience.

The afternoon loop was a repeat of the stages we’d already done; it was interesting to see how the stages had changed; it started raining which made them a bit more slippy, but they had changed in different ways – Hafren was really tough, as it had cut up quite badly and was rocky and slippy at the same time!  We were much slower this time, but Paul said I shouldn’t be unhappy with it as I’d driven well anyway, and I wasn’t too unhappy really.  Getting round to Sweet Lamb was hard again, and the car got really steamed up.

Sweet Lamb, SS6 - Rob Lees

Paul’s electric window switch had packed up so he needed to open the door to give the time card over, and it also made it difficult to get the car de-steamed… which became a problem shortly into the stage when we went over some water, and it got into the car; the last half of the stage was driven with very little visibility, but I managed to avoid anything too hard, just nerfed a couple of banks.

Myherin 2 was also pretty tricky – it was almost completely in fog throughout, and the screen was never fully clear either; the seal around the gear lever was broken, so every time we went over water, a little plume of steam rose into the car, and hit the windscreen, so there were a few more “moments” than I would have liked, and also probably a fair few too many hesitations, but I still felt I drove well – the car was humming along given enough of a downhill to get going, and 1 and 2 corners were being taken with a fair turn of speed.  Good stuff, and again I was thinking “this is why I do this!” during it, in between trying to clear the screen, drive and so on!

So, the stages of Day 1 were done!  However, there was the case of the 3 hour road section, which was made challenging by some bad traffic delays (about 20 minutes stuck on a road, near-stationary) and a rather circuitous route (which takes us to the remote refuel zone, despite not needing to go there) – we arrived with a few minutes to spare, although there was some good news – a third refill of the tank seems to have improved things, but we will see.

Once we arrived at Cardiff (and had a car wash!), we had a few minutes spare, and spoke to James from Motorsports News, as well as Andrew Kellitt from the MSA, and then booked into service – we had a few things to do, and they all got done fairly easily, made even better by Al and Ian’s fantastic work setting up the service area, with the Gazebo fully up and lit; it was like being a real rally team!  At one point Al was under the car and said “Does this really belong here?”. I was worried, but then he said it was OK really… just a “stick” was wedged in there, apparently split on the front edge of the tank guard;  when he threw it out we laughed as it wasn’t a stick, more a branch really!

Al and the stick!

With everything done, a quick dash back to Parc Ferme, with the car put to bed with all the big boys – As we were there (because of the flexible service times) several front runners arrived, including Raikkonnen and Henning Solberg.  Or more to the point, their cars, driven by their service crew rather than themselves!

Friday night Parc Ferme

So, that’s it – Day 1 is complete.  Not ideal, by any stretch, but if you said to me I’d be 56th after Day 1, with the car in good shape, I’d have taken it.  Tomorrow is looking good, although a bit less so, ‘cos the hot water has packed up again at the house!