Skoda Rally Blog

Today was the day the rally proper started, although it seems an age since we turned up and set everything up. The twins (Anthony and Christopher Newton, our service crew) arrived last night, so we had breakfast and set off for the service area, which was buzzing. We drove through quickly but the twins took their time, and we forgot that the novelty had worn off for us, being in an area with the gods of rallying….

Got the car started up, sorted out the last few issues (including putting the spare wishbones and driveshafts firmly cable-tied in place), and off to the start it was. As I’ve said before I get pretty worried before an event, but once we’ve actually started I calm down a bit. But still, waiting to go into the first time control I still wonder if I’ve done enough on the car to make it through. And this, of course, is a far bigger test than any other yet. Got the time cards, and then a new experience, having the tyres marked, which is to stop illegal servicing. And off to the first stage – the road section wasn’t too long and we off the motorway quite quickly….

…. to find the grinding noise from last night was back! Again, I seemed to be blighted by the curse of first stage failure, but we’d not even got to the stage start yet. But we had to get on, and I decided to get the car there and then take a look. But before we’d even got there, we passed an Impreza that had broken down. Oh dear, not good to not even get to the first stage. We parked up and then had the front wheel off again, but found nothing – it just sounded like something grinding and the other guys there just said to ignore it – it’d work itself out and no point in taking it apart. So I took their advice and did exactly that. It didn’t return.

And then we were off! Stage one went pretty well although the car was all over the place in parts – if we were off line, then it got hairy very quickly, although we’re just trundling along in comparison. Several things occurred to me – firstly that the diff means you can really get out of corners better, and not waste what little power the car has spinning the wheels. Secondly, the new suspension worked really well – bumps that would have been teeth-jarrers with the HP stuff on were fine, so I was pleased with that. THirdly, not a lot of grip in places, with a pretty lairy back end. Apart from that, it went well. Saw several cars off or stopped though, which was a real surprise.

Off to stage 2 – the road section was quite short, but the actual access road to the forest is pretty long, about 6km, so you think you’ve got there and then realise there’s a fair way to go. But it’s always reassuring to reach the other competitors; although we’re slow and it means the timings are tighter for us than the quick boys, we were seeing a few cars in the queue, and a couple of people out of order already, including a Fiesta (125, I think). He didn’t seem bothered, parked up and had a smoke!

Then stage 2 started, and it was a fair bit bumpier than the one before, and had changed more since the recce, although some bits were for the better, and the “mistake” we thought was in the notes on the second run wasn’t a mistake at all – it read just fine. I took it easy on a couple of dodgy bits (where you go through gates, for instance), but didn’t take my own advice on a square left which was quite rocky. We hit something really hard, and had the sound that I didn’t want to hear, a road-speed related knocking sound which sounded like only one thing.

The end of the rally.

I pulled over when it was safe, and tried to have a look, but I’d pulled to the left of the road, and the noise was coming from that side, so we had to go up the road a bit, and then press the button on the tracker to say we were OK.

Out with the triangle and the OK board, and then jack the car up and take the wheel off. I couldn’t see anything wrong with the hub, driveshaft or the wishbone. Disc looked OK. I was confused, and just thinking it was the end of the rally, and so soon. Just for one crappy rock.

I looked down at the ground, and saw something really good. The wheel was dented, on the inside of the rim, and it had been knocking on the steering arm. It might just mean a change of wheel could do it, so Paul got the wheel out, I put it on, and got everything back in the car, and got ready to go. I reckon this took about 5 minutes in all, but it seemed like a lifetime. Put the car in gear, pulled away, and there was no noise. It was all fine!

It took about 5 minutes of driving before I was back in “driving” mode, but eventually I calmed down (Paul commented on this on one straight), and we made it to the end of the stage OK, although I took it easy in a few places again as I didn’t want a repeat, and the car sounded a bit rattly. And the Tracker wasn’t happy about us stopping on stage, despite having done the right thing.

I had thought the delay on the stage would mean we’d be late, but we made it in time, even had time to check what the rattling was – turned out it was the damper top bolt which I didn’t have a spanner for! Pliers had to suffice, and did OK.

Stage 3 went well, and we had a good time – the Walters arena at the top had actually dried out a bit and smoothed over, and we had fun through there, and there were a LOT of people in there, so hopefully they didn’t think we looked too inept – I can assure them that we might have looked slow after all the others, but we were giving it some effort. The rest of the stage was good fun, and it hadn’t cut up as badly as I’d feared. There were quite a few cars off here too, although everyone had OK boards out which was a bonus.

Then it was back to service, which was just fixing a few issues, and eating a hot god in lieu of lunch, and back out again.

Each repeat stage was much the same as the first, although they had cut up a bit in places, so there were some “follow the ruts” moments, and getting off line was very slippy indeed and best avoided. As time went on, it was getting a bit dark, and the lamp pod was badly aimed which didn’t help, neither did the mist that hung between some of the trees – on Stage 6 this was so bad in a couple of places we couldn’t see very much at all, and had to really take it slowly. We also got caught and passed by the Lintons in car 136 who we are servicing next to and sharing a generator with; they’d had a few problems, and we saw them on the road section on the way back with cooling issues, so we gave them our 2 litre bottle of tesco’s value water we had for just this kind of thing – the car took the whole lot so they were lucky to get back to service.

So were we, on time, as a policeman had decided to ‘shepherd’ a slow-moving car (not in the rally) to a petrol station, meaning no overtaking and losing over 5 minutes behind him doing 15 mph. Great. Just about managed to get a jet-wash, check in and then go to service.

Service involved sorting out the sumpguard noise that had developed, finding some gearbox oil on it (although only a bit so hopefully this is OK as there’s little sign of a real leak), and changing the alternator, plus various small bits. Took 40 of the 45 minutes though, and then a new experience – checking the car into Parc Ferme, with all the big boys, some of whom had very secondhand looking cars. OK, we’re slow, we’re cheap, but look at it this way – we’ve not killed the car, we’re still in it, and pound for pound, we kick ass!

I just hope day 2 goes as well!