Skoda Rally Blog

Today was an unusual rally for me – it marked a number of firsts.  The first time I’d drive the Seat in anger, the first time my sister had ever done any navigation, and the first time I’d done the Longmoor Loco stages.  So, how did it go?

Well, it all started yesterday, getting everything loaded up.  When I got the Seat it had a number of spare tarmac tyres, which originally gave me the idea to do the event.  While they were a medium/hard compound (X06), I thought it was worth a try anyway, so had them all put on rims, along with some X16 compound (much softer) tyres which had been cut down the middle, notionally to be used as wets.  Or at least intermediates.  With the van borrowed from Mark, the loading began, with the spare tyres I had (including some winter tyres, just in case of, well, snow I guess), a selection of tools in the toolbox, obligatory tarpaulin to service on, and a jack.  Not a lot really, but then it was just a small event and hopefully the tools would be unnecessary.  Hopefully.

Longmoor is about 75 miles from home, so we set out early as we needed to arrive for around 7:15 or so – this was done easily enough as the roads were pretty deserted, and the drive was painless enough, although I could see my sister was a bit nervous about what was coming up.  The unloading procedure was a bit odd, needing to unload the rally car from the van and drive it to the scrutineering area, while taking the van separately.  Vicky wasn’t confident to drive either rally car or van, so I had to take the rally car over, and then jog back about a mile to get the van.  By which time it was light (and Vicky then said she would have driven!), but we got everything set up OK and then headed off for scrutineering, which took place in a long tunnel-like building with the cars queueing up in it.  This would have been nice if it wasn’t for someone leaving their car running; I’d think in such a building any cars would be a bit headache inducing, but with a selection of badly-mapped cars idling richly on race fuel, it was not something I’d want to stand in, so we stayed clear until it was nearly our turn.  Scrutiny went well, so off we went to get set up.  I say ‘set up’, I really mean ‘get a tarpaulin out and park the car on it’.  I’m no stranger to having less equipment than everyone else, but I’d forgotten how much gear people have – quite a few had full on setups with race transporters as well as full service crews.  And then there was me, my sister and my Mum!  Anyway, we got all the paperwork finished off and then had a fair old wait before our start time, so took the opportunity to walk some of the course.  This reassured me (as I could see the parts of the stage which looked like they might be trouble on the maps), and seemed to disturb Vicky as it was now getting very real.  But I was happy enough; the weather was OK and I even saw the sun at one point.  We got suited up and watched the other cars go round (as the service area was right next to part of the stage), and soon enough it was time to go.  We got strapped in, and off we went – I was a bit nervous due to the car, tyres and lack of practice on tarmac (not a surface I would ever say I was amazing on anyway), but I think that paled into insignificance to Vicky, who seemed pretty nervous now, despite my reassurances that it’d all be fine.  We got booked in and waited to take to the first stage, which happened soon enough.  Once we’d gone from the start, Vicky did well to call the corners as we went, but it hit me.

I’d brought a knife to a gunfight.

Not in terms of the car – it showed straight away that it was quality.  But the tyres, oh the tyres!  They were shocking.  To be fair it was clearly too cold (about 5 degrees C) for them, but even so, they were terrible.  The back of the car was all over the place; when I got to the third corner I was already on opposite lock, thankfully easy to do with the 2-turns lock-to-lock quick rack, but it needed no encouragement to hang the back of the car out at all.  The brakes were also hard work – they needed WAY too much pressure on the pedal to get them to do anything and this combined with the slippery tyres meant I had no confidence that the car would stop;  I can remember years ago doing Caerwent and being able to hit the brakes on the Skoda hard enough to give me bruised shoulders, but there was no chance of that.  On the second lap round we got caught by someone on their third lap, but moved out the way quickly enough, and then it was apparent just how much time we were losing when we followed him round; on the straights it was fine, but into corners I had to brake way too early.  On one of the chicanes I lost the back of the car so it was really close to the limit.  However, stage 1 was completed without any mishaps other than driving around like a newborn deer on an iced-over lake.  Vicky seemed pleased but a bit ill after all the sliding about, so we headed off to service and checked everything over.  I dropped the tyre pressures, and found that the fronts were at least warm – the rears were stone cold, so clearly a lot softer would be the way to go if you had a range of tyres as many others did.  The piles of tyres people turn up with aren’t just for show.  But the problem with this is that each tyre is £150 in the size I am using.  So that’d be £600 just for a set on another compound which would not last that long either!

Stage 2 was a re-run of stage 1 and went well for the most part; Vicky was doing a good job again, and I was getting a bit more confident with the car as although it wasn’t great, it was predictable – although it seemed there was less grip than Stage 1 this could just have been perception rather than fact.  I over-cooked it at one point and locked up heading off the road, thankfully into a ramp rather than a kerb, but took ages getting the car into reverse, and longer getting it back in first again.  In addition I tried using the handbrake on some of the tighter corners.  Or rather the wrong handbrake!  I have got so used to it being the normal one in the Skoda that I didn’t use the hydraulic one.  It didn’t work well!  Braking down for one of the chicanes the back of the car tried to overtake the front (something my Mum commented on later on!) Other than that it went OK; clearly on totally the wrong tyres we were never going to go fast, but I’d already given over to that, and was having fun.    Once we were in service I decided to make a change to the car and put the softer-compound ‘wet’ tyres on the rear, in the hope they would warm up a bit and give some grip – I didn’t want to spin into a wall or similar.

Stage 3 was a new layout, with some sections different, and once we got going and the back end got some heat in the tyres it was a bit more fun to drive.  The correct handbrake was used this time, and it worked a treat; not only for the two tight turns which were clear candidates but also for a couple of others to move the back around – not something I’d have wanted to do earlier on.  There was still not a lot of grip to be had, but the car seemed good other than that.  It has a quaife diff in it which get a lot of grief from many rally drivers because they are gear-based and don’t offer the ultimate grip that a plate-type diff does, but I have to say that I found it very driveable; even with the minimal grip on offer today the car never span all the power away on the inside wheel and it was always predictable and progressive; not something I’ve always found with a plate diff.  At the end, however, it was apparent that Vicky was not doing so well – she’d been feeling quite ropey all morning, and each stage seemed to make things worse; she’d lost her place a couple of times on this stage and that was why.  I advised going for a walk away from all the generator and car fumes which seemed to help a bit, but she was still unwell… The car was running quite hot too, but it would appear that the automatic fan isn’t cutting in, so I left the manual one on for the rest of the day which seemed to help out while queuing.

On the way to Stage 4 I mentioned that I’d known several people who were experienced suffer from sickness in the car, and that people I know have had to quit because of it, so we took the stage and gave it a good go.  Vicky called all the corners as they should be, and even though the rain had just started it seemed to go OK.  We could see we were clearly quicker than some of the cars which we were catching (although again losing lots on braking areas) who were on other laps.  Once Vicky had called the last split (turning right to go to the stage finish) she went quiet.  I nearly made a joke as she hadn’t called the last corner, but it was obvious what it was as we’d used it 3 times before.  However, once we went over the finish I turned to her and realised why she’d been quiet – she was really ill!  She gave the timecard over, and I said to get ready to get out of the car, and once the timecard duties were taken care of she did just that, and went to be sick – thankfully she’d not done it in the car, and I took everything off her in time so she got out without issue.

I drove back to service and she appeared a few minutes later, much worse for wear.  It was clear that there was no way we could continue, and to be honest given that the weather was changing for the worse and I already had no grip it was clearly time to go home, so we packed up, loaded up and went, having handed in time cards, for the third time on an SV event that I’ve done, and only (I think) the sixth retirement while I’ve been rallying.

There are many elements to rallying, and many things that can go wrong – most of the time we talk about bits on the car failing or tyres not being up to scratch or whatever, but the crew is just as important, and can also fail, and that’s what happened this time (through no fault of her own).  I think the combination of and extremely tight and twisty course and navigating duties was just too much; Vicky spent all the rest of the day looking like death warmed up, and apparently the journey home in the van was enough to make her feel like throwing up a couple of times, so clearly we made the right decision.  During the slippery Stage 1 I thought it was possible I’d be going home without a car, so it wasn’t the end of the world, and it goes to show something that I’ve never really given much thought to – not everyone is cut out for doing rallying, for a variety of reasons.  Still, it was fun while it lasted, and once the brakes are sorted on the Seat I’m sure it’ll be a riot on the Sunseeker.  I’m applying the Burley mentality of looking at the bright side of things – the car is fine and goes well, and no-one died! Alas, there are no pictures of the event as it was on MoD land with a strict camera ban in place.  It’s a pity as it would have looked great in places.

So, the three elements?  Well, the Seat is definitely going to be a good car when the brakes are working well and it’s on gravel.  Longmoor Loco?  A great event – tight and twisty, and I can see that if it was icy it would be a massive test of car and driver.  My sister?  Well, she knows how to keep sick in until she leaves the car, and that’s a top skill!