Skoda Rally Blog

Today the real business of the rally began. The Recce. Driving the stages and making the notes of them, so you can drive them more quickly and safely on the event itself. This is something that we only get to do when we do Rally GB, so it wouldn’t have been a bad idea to have practiced beforehand. It hadn’t happened, aside from me practicing calling out the roads where I’d been over the last few weeks.

We set off a bit late (7am) and headed for the first of today’s five stages to recce, Halfway. This is a mixed stage which is partly open “military” ground and partly forest, and is being run backwards compared to how we’d done it in the past, meaning an unfamiliar stage, a complete re-write of the notes, and two passes being needed. We were a bit later than we thought we should be; we got there for 8:10am, expecting a large queue. There were only two cars there, which either meant everyone had already gone, or they’d got up late. Either way, we got started, and the first issue was the weather – it was already a bit wet and cold, but now it was sleet/snowing. This is a totally new experience for me – I’ve never driven on snow aside from mucking about or when going on holiday, and certainly never on gravel covered in snow. It seemed OK at first, but then started to get slippy unexpectedly. The note-making came back to us fairly quickly, but it wasn’t helped by the snow becoming really intense by now, and covering the ground well. The first part of Halfway is open and I thought quite simple, but I was wrong – there were a number of places where it was quite tricky and it seems that there are bends which flowed better in reverse to this year’s direction. Once we got to the forestry section, it was really slippy in places, and with the drop-offs that are on a few of the corners, it’s important not to get them wrong. The problem with this is that if you become all tense and worried then you seem to MAKE bad things happen, and there were a couple of “moments” where things could have been a lot smoother. Paul seemed unbothered by any of this, and we got to the end of the stage without major incident.

Next it was off to Crychan – you have to do both stages on pass one, and then back for pass two.

Here’s a quick video of a few seconds of it….

This is one of my favourite stages (or at least it was the other way round), but being covered in snow made previously slippy bits seem really dodgy – we weren’t going quickly at all, and yet the car was bobbing about without any warning (to me, anyway), but in other bits there would be good grip – the problem was telling where it was. Or not, in my case. Either way, the stage went fairly smoothly – there are some great sections in here, and once we got going OK it seemed good (albeit slow), and the notes seem more detailed than last year’s. There are always things that you think you’ve missed out and decisions to be made (such as putting in small crests that really amount to nothing, or leaving it all as one big distance), but I guess that would come with more practice and be needed with more speed; at the speeds we’re going, it’s far less critical than all the serious crews (i.e. everyone else). Oddly we still hadn’t seen anyone – no-one had overtaken us, and we’d not caught anyone either, parked up. It was like the place was deserted. When we got to the end there was a specific route to be taken to get back to Halfway run two, and it was quite rough and slippy itself! I found it quite odd that I’ve not recognised any of the stages in reverse (both finish lines were a surprise), but on the way back down I went down a track I once drove round (when I visited halfway on my mountain bike in 06) I recognised THAT instead. Weird.

Run 2 on Halfway was next, and when we got to the start, we asked how many were ahead of us – apparently some hadn’t even done their FIRST run at this point, which sounded crazy – maybe they were going to do every stage really quickly or only do one run? Anyway, we set off again, at a bit more of a tilt, with Paul reading the notes back to me and checking that everything is well – usually some adjustments need to be made (some of them where I’d lost it a bit in the car and lost my rhythm), but it was all good really, just minor changes needed and we did the run a fair bit quicker, despite the snow now being quite thick in the middle of the stage – Dixies was just pure white when we crossed it, and the descent from there was pretty slippy; the forestry section was better generally but still had a few surprises in store, but we got to the end OK, and then headed off for Crychan 2….

… which was also good – most of the notes were OK with only minor changes needed, and although there were some more ‘moments’ when I was pushing to feel how much grip there was, it was mostly relatively smooth, and the first time I really missed the power of the rally car, which I guess is a good sign if I wanted to go faster! Again there was the route out, and then off we went to the Mid Wales trio of classic stages, Hafren, Sweet Lamb and Myherin.

Which were a LONG way away! Several people overtook us on the way there (mostly in Subarus or 4x4s, definitely the thing to be using in these conditions), and amazingly we were only about 20 minutes behind schedule. But once we got to the stage start (via some beautiful scenery), I was a bit worried as we were told that Loeb had managed to roll his recce car! I’m not having a particulary confidence-inspiring day, and finding out that one of the best drivers in the world had binned it did nothing to change that! Nice to meet some guys from the britishrally.co.uk forum, but the main thought was “Take it easy, Jones” as we set off into Hafren.

Being a totally new stage I had no idea what to expect, aside from more snow and ice. And I wasn’t disappointed – the stage itself is fantastic, with some long sweeping climbs and probably fantastic views as well, if I’d had a chance to look at any of them, but given the current road conditions even a fraction of a second diverted away from the road could let things get messy – this happened a couple of times when I looked away from where we were going and the end result was….sideways! Lesson Learnt.

I’d love to say more about the stage, but I don’t really remember much specifically about it aside from it seeming a bit shorter than I was expecting – the end came up sooner than I though, and this was possibly a good thing as it was very slippy in places, and as a result the concentration was taking a toll on me, so the chance to relax for a few minutes would be welcome. Except there was no chance to relax as the road between Hafren and Sweet Lamb is…a forestry track, and what’s more it was cold, exposed and snow covered, so it was a bit dodgy in places so that was that. And up to the start of Sweet Lamb, which is a short stage, which ends with a spectator section inside a “bowl”. It was cold, hard and harsh up here, but the stage was mostly good – a couple of dodgy corners, but not too slippy which was welcome. The final section for spectators with a watersplash and jumps looks like it’d be a place to see people get their cars airborne and probably have a few moments. We declined the invitation and trundled round, and then headed off for Myherin.

Fortunately the route to Myherin involved some road, so I had a bit of time to relax mentally (not totally, constable!), which was definitely needed as this is the longest stage of the rally, at 35km. When we got there the arrival crew told us that it was very slippy between posts 8 and 12, and also after the stage finish – and we wouldn’t want to bin it on the way OUT of the stage, would we? No!

The start of Myherin is a series of large hairpins, switching-back up the mountainside, and as soon as we got into the stage it was snowy. Not just a bit, but properly snowy, with the stage COMPLETELY white up ahead – sometimes there was little clue where to go, which made things ‘interesting’, and it was pretty slippy just about everywhere. Once we got high enough, it opens out into a plateau, and a surprise for us – there was a wind farm up here, and these things are MASSIVE. I wished I’d had time to take in more of the desolate view that was up there – an alien world of snow and rock with these three-pronged monsters whirling around. And we had to weave our way between them, which was OK, for the most part; there were a few bits that were dodgy, and the whole track was white everywhere here.

Fairly soon we were at post 8, where we’d been warned that things got slippy. And they weren’t wrong. There was a 100 yard downhill section which goes into a 3 right, and here I thought it was over. Although I’d managed to slow down to about 10mph before it let go, the car was just sliding to the left (and into the trees) no matter what I tried. It probably only took 2 or 3 seconds, but it seemed like an eternity to me, but finally the wheels gripped and tugged the front of the car round, and the back dutifully followed. It wouldn’t have been a bad accident or anything, but it WOULD have been a right pain in the arse. I lost my place for a few seconds and then got on with it. Paul, as ever, seemed untroubled by what had just happened.

The rest of the “danger” section was far grippier, despite looking bad, and then out into another exposed section, and then into the woods once more for a BIG uphill section. There were several cars stopped here, the crews were out, but they were motioning to us to keep going; I guess others had stopped and regretted it, so we just pinned the mighty 50 Czech horses and made it to the top. I think I saw Matt Cotton at this point, but I didn’t stop to say Hi. Sorry, Matt.

The rest of the stage was much as before – there are some great sections here of flowing left / right 1 and 2 corners, so I guess the big boys will be flying through here, and I’d love a 4WD car in these conditions, for sure. The last section of the stage was quite open and exposed and a bit slippy, but we got to the end OK.

Once we got there and got everything ready for the drive back round, we saw a fair bit of traffic and realised why – someone looked to have stuffed their Recce car (an Evo) off the track after the stage finish (possibly), and it was being recovered (definitely) – we later found out this was none other than Sebastien Loeb who’d gone off here. Care was taken here and all the way down to the road, and we could see a few tracks in the snow where people before had got it wrong and had some off-road moments!

Back round to Hafren for another run, and this was again a case of the stage being much better second time round. The crew there were pleased to see us back in the same car, and also seemed to like my testing strategy of “take the car to work”, which was nice. The stage went well, and quicker than before, with only minor changes needed to the notes. The same went for Sweetlamb as well.

And hext, Hafren. By now we were running about 30 minutes behind our original schedule and we only got there with 15 minutes before the stage closed, but we did make it. This time it was considerably snowier than before, and slippier too. The dodgy section where we’d nearly gone off was still bad (but seemed better), and the big hill with the many people stopped on it was now clear (although with marks showing their struggles to get up the hill). The end section, however, nearly proved too much. What’s happened several times today is that just touching the brakes with the car still in gear will stall it really easily. Which isn’t good when using power is the only way to get the car to go in the right direction. And this happened on a 2 right – the car was drifting towards the outside of the turn (which is on a raised section) and towards the only tree in the vacinity. I dropped the clutch and then bump-started the engine and managed to get us going in the right direction. Again, it probably only took a couple of seconds, but it seemed hairy. And this time… Paul noticed it – I saw him brace himself, and that worried me more than anything!

Luckily this was only about 1km from the end, so not too far to go with zero confidence. Just the long (100 mile) drive back to service to go. By this time it was dark, and there seem to be a LOT of people in Wales with trailers who have very high headlights as a result, making for an unpleasant drive back when I was already fried from a day’s note-making. We eventually got back to service (2 hours later) and got the WRC tracker from a man who works for ISC who clearly isn’t troubled by self-doubt (as he said there was no need for Paul to check what was in the package as he’d “packed every one himself”, but given ISC’s behaviour before….)

Anyway, today has been a difficult day. It really reminds me of the first time I did a forest rally, Newton Abbot Audi stages where I was dog slow and spun the car several times without warning. I left there with no confidence whatsoever, and I feel exactly the same way now. I guess snow is the difference between men and boys, and I’d better go get my school uniform.