Skoda Rally Blog

I’ve had some ‘interesting’ moments at the beginning of rallies before, and this turned out to be no exception. What i mean by that is little mechanical issues that just seem to pop up at the wrong times and ruin my state of mind. We got to the service park for around 6pm, as we had nearly an hour’s drive to Cardiff for the ceremonial start (which is really a PR exercise – it has no bearing on the rally itself, and is untimed), but you have to be there 45 minutes before your due time or face a fine of ?500. The first thing that worried me was that the whole service park was deserted, and I was worried that we were late, but we overtook some others (on trailers) on the M4. BUt about half a mile from the Stadium, there was a HORRIBLE noise suddenly coming from the front of the car, a screeching sound that didn’t alter with power, braking or steering. Typical. We parked up, and jacked the car up, and I got the wheel off, and couldn’t find anything. We spun the wheel, still had the noise, took the wheel off again and it stopped. It sounded like the brake backplate, and we found a stone under the hub, so it could have just been that trapped in there. Hope so, anyway.

We had a couple of hours to spare and spent most of the time chatting with friends who’d turned up (thanks Juliet!) and the parked up cars left one by one, after the ‘big boys’ there were a lot of ‘lesser’ cars, all of which I would love to drive – it’s odd how people think the cars aren’t that special when really all the field are. Well, nearly all of them! Had a couple of people who were amazed the car was still in Homologation, but there you go!

Then it was time to drive up the ramp and queue for the ceremonial start, which was running quite late. We had to get out of the car, have our pictures taken and have a quick (under a minute) interview. The commentator there was the same one as on the Sunseeker, and he remembered that we’d put “We’re out of our depth here. JUst wait and see how out of our depth we are on Wales Rally GB” so there was some comment on that, and the usual “get to the finish” encouragement. I hope that we will see Robin again on Sunday!

And then we were off, with the few people who were still there cheering which was really heart-warming, thanks for that if any of you read this! We headed off up Westgate street, and actually had the Police stop traffic for us which was nice. Then the same old motorway slog to the service park, having filled the car up ready for tomorrow.

At least I hope it’s ready for tomorrow. We have a 10:40am start, so I could get a lie in.

Except for one thing. I have not slept well in over a week now. I never do when I’m worried about things, and this has been a lot of effort, so I’ve not had over 6 hours on any night, and 5 has been more like it. There are a lot of people who say that this event is a piece of cake now, and “not like the old days”. I can’t comment on that, of course, but what I can say is that it’s Thursday, at 22:43 as I type this. I have _never_ been this tired in my life – I am mentally drained, thankfully physically all my time at the gym has paid off as I feel good in that respect, but I’m pooped. And the event proper hasn’t actually started. I don’t know much, but I know this isn’t a piece of cake.