Skoda Rally Blog

Today dawned much warmer than usual, and although a bit damp, it looked like being a nice day.  How do I know this?  Because I woke up at 4:30am for no good reason other than having had a very weird dream about knowing I’d done the event, but not being able to remember it!

I loaded the car up with some spares and various service items, the jack and a few wheels, and got ready.  Paul came over about 8, we loaded the tool box into the car, and then headed off to service.  When we got there it was neatly organised and not very busy – our end had the National crews in there and most were similarly equipped to us with just a van and a tarp out, rather than the mega setups often seen further up the order.  We got ‘set up’ which consisted of getting the tarpaulin and 4 wheels out (which for once weren’t actually needed to stop it blowing away as it was still and pleasant), and checked over a last few things, setting up the power supply for Paul’s phone and camera mountings.

We were ready with plenty of time spare, and when the time came (after triple-checking everything, as ever!), we headed out to the first stage, Gore Heath.  On the way we filled the car up as we had no idea of consumption and the erratic fuel gauge needed more time to be trusted, and got to the stage with enough time to get set up and set the tyre pressures.  The start looked hard to get away from as it was so rutted and it certainly was.  Once into the stage I was instantly reminded of the first few times I rode a motocross bike – lots of power, but lots of wheelspin and just a general feeling of ‘skimming’ over the surface rather than driving on it – the car is pretty powerful but being FWD you break traction quite easily so as soon as it hit the power we were wheelspinning in first and second.  I had no idea what gear to take given corners in, and this would take a few stages to come.  Although it felt quicker than the Skoda, it certainly wasn’t quick – I was all over the place, frankly.  As it was only 2 miles long, it was over quickly enough, and off to SS2, Wareham Main.  This was much the same – the terrain here is mostly pretty soft, so it cuts up really badly in places, and there was still a lack of grip, confidence and probably ability too.  When we got to the faster sections with straights, the car was all over the place – it seemed to grip and grab quite a lot, and I’m not sure if it was the ATB diff fitted, but it seemed way more skittery than the Skoda, which didn’t help on the longer straights which the stage has.  We passed an Escort pulled over to the side of the road (with the crew out, waving us past) – later I’d find out they had a fire inside the car with the fuel tank having been punctured, so that must have been pretty hairy for them!

We got to the end OK, but it was clear that I had my work cut out – the car was a fair old handful compared to the mild-mannered Skoda, but Paul agreed it was best to build up speed and get used to it rather than bin it early on (or indeed at all).  The road timing to get to SS3 was really tight, but we got there with seconds to spare – the irony is than once you’ve got to the arrival control with lots of panic you usually have a couple of minutes waiting on the start line (we did with no-one else about as the escort on the stage before was the car in front of us), but into SS3 and it was much the same, although some of the soft sections were hideous – Paul said “it’s like a beach” at one point as it was just soft sand with foot-deep ruts.  The car was bouncing all over the place and it felt like we’d never make it through a couple of them, but we did.  Good – Wareham was out of the way, even if the oil and water temperatures were really high by the end.

Back to service, and the only issue so far was the right indicator not working.  It was only a 15 minute service so we didn’t have much time other than to check the obvious stuff and make sure levels were OK, then off out again for SS4, Ringwood West; this is a shortened version of the “Ararat/Plumley Wood” stage of old, which would be running later on as SS8 and SS12.

The road section was pleasant, and the stage generally went a lot better; the terrain here is much firmer gravel for the most part, so on the longer straights the car wasn’t anywhere near as unstable, and despite a few missed gearchanges it went pretty well, getting more of an idea of what gear to take corners in (which is critical as the engine is quite peaky and the gearbox not close ratio enough for it to always be right in the power), but getting up the steep hill (about the only one on the event really) was so much quicker than the Skoda – indeed quick enough that I think Paul needed to adjust his pacenote speed a fair bit as stuff was coming up quicker.  We got passed by a very quick escort in this stage; I tried to keep up and found that on top speed we were similar, and indeed into the 2 corners I saw him for we weren’t too bad either, but getting out of them he just had so much traction compared to us – he just shot forward.  I can really see why people love Escorts.  Again overall, I think we’d improved on this stage, and it felt more like it, but still the braking was a fair bit off, and I was shy of going flat out at high speed as the car was still scary at speed.

SS5 was Somerley, another new layout this year.  The notes at the beginning of the stage were…. well, we both thought we were in the wrong place until a 90 left about a mile into the stage – they just didn’t seem to make sense, which didn’t help with my confidence, but once we got onto a more familiar bit and the notes worked OK it went pretty well; there were high speed 2 and 3 corners which were taken a bit slower than they should have been because again I was concerned that the car was all over the place and here there were logs laid down by the road; hit one and it would be over.  Very over.  Again, though, it was much quicker than the Skoda would have been, and as ever there were sections at Somerley that were just hideous – cut to death usually on 90 degree corners where you’re almost a passenger as the ruts control the car completely.  The tarmac section by the house looked to have been clattered by a few as there was straw everywhere, and then back into the forest with a really high speed section, which I took as quickly as I dared and was getting a bit more confident with the car again.  The end section is a tight and rutted bit, never a favourite but it went OK.  We got to the end of the stage with a hot car and a reasonably satisfied crew, and off to SS6, Uddens.

Although Uddens is only short, it’s one of my favourite stages as it has a good section at the beginning with some great corners – 6s and squares, and for the most part is good surface.  Clearly someone skimped on the repairs after last year as one of the corners had some massive potholes in it – not something it has ever had before, so it’s not great to see that the £500+ per mile that’s paid to the FC doesn’t look to be well spent.  The corners are the only place real damage occurs to the roads, and it can’t cost that much to repair this sort of thing properly.  Anyway, aside from that it went pretty well, although the car wasn’t entirely happy flat in fourth for about half a mile at the end – it got hot and seemed to lose power so I backed off a bit, unfortunately.  6 down, and back to service.

This time we had a fair time in the holding control (15 minutes), having had 10 minutes or so waiting to go into it, during which time I’d fixed the indicator issue and spoken to James from Motorsports News, and we took the time to phone people while we were in there (and Paul was advising his sister on a new laptop purchase!), and into service.  Again, nothing too serious to do – everything was OK and the indicator had been the only issue on the car so far, which was a good thing.

Half way through, so out to SS7, Ringwood South.  This was the stage in 2009 where the Skoda LSD exploded, so I still have bad memories of one corner, so was pleased it went well for the most part; the ground here is soft, black and loamy, much like Wareham, so there was a fair bit of bouncing around, but it went pretty well, and off to the main course of the event; SS8 Ringwood North.  This is where Tammie and the kids had gone (complete with camping stove and chairs, for a nice day out in the sun!), so I was really looking forward to them all seeing me in the car (as were most of them, even!).

It wasn’t to be.  There had been an accident and tree fire in the International event, so the stage was cancelled.  I was devastated – both for the reason above, and also because it’s the main stage of the event, which I love.  Looking it from a purely financial point of view, that’s about £100 of the entry fee that is cancelled, which is unavoidable and part of the sport, but still a bitter pill to swallow.  We turned round and took an alternative route to SS9, Somerley 2.  As we got to the arrival control, I felt the steering get heavy – the assistance had gone.  Handily there was a 20 minute or so delay while everything got in sync due to the cancellation, which gave me time to find the fault – a union had come loose, and leaked all the fluid.  I managed to tighten it up with tools in the car, but we didn’t have any fluid.  I’d have to do the stage without power steering; if you’ve ever tried turning the steering on a PAS car with the engine turned off, then you’ll know how heavy that is. It’s made harder by the fact that the steering is only 2 turns from lock to lock in the Seat, although easier due to being on gravel.

After a long wait, we went into the stage.  The notes at the beginning still didn’t seem to work well, but a more immediate problem was the amount of effort needed for the steering – it was really heavy, and every time we hit a bump, the feedback through the wheel was immense.  The stage went as well as could be expected given this and the moon-like condition of parts of the stage; it was like driving through an open quarry in places, more suitable for massive diggers than a little car, but it made it.  By the end we had lost loads of time, and I’d lost the ability to feel my right hand – it had gone totally numb – and the left hurt like hell.  I lost count of how many times I swore in the stage.  Back to service, and refilling the reservoir and system got the steering working OK, but the noise from the pump confirmed that it was another casualty of rallying.  Hopefully the rack will be OK, as it was mega expensive by all accounts, as it was custom made.  The steering felt a bit erratic, but I’m hoping that’s down to the pump’s performance rather than anything else.  We headed off for SS10, Uddens which was a slightly different layout this time out, but still had the nice opening section.

This went pretty well, and the steering seemed OK for the most part.  I took some of the tighter corners better, making more use of the handbrake, but still suffering the power drop-off at the end, and a very hot engine when we got there.  All done, though, and a road section off to SS11.

By now it was getting towards twilight, and when we got there said a quick hello to Gary (rallydelta), and then into the stage.  Whenever it starts to get dark, my thoughts turn towards finishing; it seems that you’ve worked hard for the day and now you want things to go OK so you can finish the day well, and go home without issue.  As we went through the stage it was going well; the corners were being taken better still, and it was coming together nicely.  The stage had cut up really badly in places, and the car was suffering in those bits.  There’s a long straight with a hairpin left on it, which went OK but after it a rutted soft section, and as we headed into it, the revs just went up.  I knew it straight away – a shaft had broken, or similar.  I changed gear a few times as we rolled along to see if it was that, but it was no good. We were going nowhere.  Dammit.

We pulled over to the side of the road, got the OK board out, and I took a look.  I could see the one driveshaft looked at a dodgy angle, and a quick grab confirmed it – the outside end had snapped, inside the CV boot so it thankfully wasn’t flailing all over and causing damage, but that was that.

Of course, this has happened before, and I’m a grown man, but I was still angry.  I found out two things at this point.  Firstly that there is a LOT of reverberation in a forest – if you say something loud and abrupt, you hear it echo.  Secondly, that I’ve at least learned to take things better.  Paul was as ever immensely positive – he was clearly disappointed by it, but as he said, it’s “much easier to fix that than a blown engine or having hit a tree”.  On the upside, a plan we’d had for later came into action; he’d put some food in the car, so he set to, making a Pot Noodle for each of us after all the other cars went by and we waved them past.

I phoned Tammie to tell her not to bother going to the Pier finish, and ask her if she could come and pick us up.  The recovery guys appeared quickly, and towed us out of the stage, and we parked up on the outlet (out of the way), locked up and went to get a lift back.

We got back to service, packed up the gear, and headed back out to the car to change the driveshaft – I thought it would only take about 15 minutes, but it took a fair bit longer than that, alas.  Massive thanks to Gary Hayter and Ricky Aitken for stopping to give us a hand on their way back from the start, hugely appreciated, and good that they got the little Peugeot to the end.  Eventually we got it all done, and drove back – the car, of course, went brilliantly and didn’t miss a beat on the way back.  On the upside, Tammie had stayed at mine and cooked a beautiful Moroccan Lamb dish (a favourite of mine from my travels on the Plymouth-Banjul rally), so that was a big upside to anotherwise bad end to the day.

So, as I write this, it’s early the next morning as I didn’t sleep too well, and I guess I need to remind myself of the positives from the event; we missed out on some of the mileage but got most of it done; if the car had died early on it would have been a disaster, and although I’m not naturally positive about these sort of things, it wasn’t a failure that could be foreseen; unless you replace the shafts with brand new ones every X miles I guess things like this will happen.  I will look into the source of the failure and see what can be done; if stronger shafts are available then that’s clearly the way to go as I don’t want another problem like this.  What’s hard is that I know that it’s another year before I can put that into action on my local event, but there you go; on Friday night I thought that even if we do go out, at least we’ve done something that many have dreamed of but few have done, and hopefully there’s no shame in that.