Skoda Rally Blog

We started out early, as time was clearly going to be a problem, so we left the B&B around 6:20, to get to the first stage (Brechfa) at 7:30 or so. However, on the way there Paul did some work on something I’d been toying with for a while – I thought that when you looked at the map it looked sensible to go to Brecfha first, then Trawscoed and then the obligatory “three-stage shuffle”, but wondered if it was best to go to Trawscoed first, partly because few people would go there first. Paul worked out that the distances covered wouldn’t be that much more anyway, so we went there, or rather to “Trousers” as Paul was now calling it.. Good idea as when we got there we were only behind one car. Ideal! This was a LONG stage, and the weather was pretty murky, especially deep in the forest where it seems to have a mind of its own. However, there was one part of the stage where I recognised a long hairpin where (I think) Markko Martin did a really great sliding entry. I attempted to mimic this with some left foot braking, but to little effect. One thing that was having a big effect, though, was the sumpguard. Now when I fitted it I was quite proud of the job I’d done, but I had made one error – it’s about 2″ lower than it should be. As a result it hit a LOT of things on the way round, and dragged up stones too. Very noisy (and it seemed to be getting noisier), and on the second run the exhaust started rubbing on it between gear changes. I started to worry that the timing of Crychan might be the least of our worries – breaking down would ruin the whole plot!

On to Brecfha (now named “Breakfast” by Paul), and more of the same – a reasonable first run, lots of interesting weather, nothing too scary (at the mortal speeds we were doing it), and bangy-scrapey-crash from the sumpguard. I feel obliged at this point to say that this was the best stage – certainly very friendly marshals at the arrival control! Second run was good too, and we’d missed nearly all the traffic here too, although we were behind schedule, despite making what I felt was good speed on the second run, only stopping a couple of times to fix errors in the notes.

The car was messy by this point….

Now it was on to Crychan, although first up was a visit to a petrol station. I think without Sat Nav we would have been in trouble, but with it it was no problem at all. Unlike finding the entry to Crychan which seemed to elude many, including a Fiesta crew who were very, very lost. They ignored us saying we’d found it, which was a pity as we actually had done! In mind of the lateness (we were already 25 minutes behind the schedule that would have seen us 2 minutes late for the second run of Crychan), we made very careful notes in case this was the last visit. I was starting to have fun, although I find that driving and calling the turns is a bit mentally tiring, and if Paul asks a question something has to give, usually what I was thinking about at the time he asked. WE made it OK, and then it was off to Epynt, across the army ranges, seeing a few groups of squaddies on maneuvers in between.

Epynt was an odd stage – mostly good, but with a very hard, rough section in the middle, and also a long-ish tarmac section, the first place where I’ve had to make a real effort not to break the speed limit. The second run was a fair bit harder (especially on the rough section), but I was having fun, even if the car wasn’t! A couple of crews mentioned the noise, but we just nodded politely and carried on.

Halfway was next up, and found to be another nice stage. There were a few bits which were eye-openers (fresh air bends which would certainly be rally, if not life-ending if taken wrongly), but most of it was good – the calls were getting more accurate, and I was starting to get confidence that I’d called them right in the first place when it wasn’t clear what was happening. The back end of Halfway is quite ‘cresty’ and reminded me of Colin McRae 2005 on the xbox. It was very, very good fun. The second run was good too with us not being totally destroyed by someone in a Mitsubishi, and overtaking Tony Jardine in his Fiesta, although the end was slow being stuck behind an Army truck.

By this time, however, there was no way we could get back to Crychan for run 2, so we decided to trot off to Cardiff. And that was well worth it. Firstly it was nice to be ushered into the stadium, and also nice to get out and have a good stretch. But doing the stage was a game of two halves. The first run, my calls were a right mess as I was trying to drive too hard and not concentrating enough, partly ‘cos I was mentally already on Saturday night. So while we queued up for run 2, I re-called the notes from scratch, and this time when Paul called it, I went for it, and even got the back end all over the place. If we make it that far, and anyone has bothered to hang around, then I hope we’ll make ’em laugh if nothing else!

Then it hit me – we’d done ALL the stages. In a Skoda that I’d bought on eBay for ?400, had a quick look at mechanically (nothing needed), chucked a sumpguard and a set of old forest tyres on, and it had done Wales Rally GB, in essence. OK, the water pump sounds like it’s on its last legs, but that aside it’s done very well, I reckon. Maybe it’d be a good Endurance rally car….

Just had to go and do “Documentation”. This is one of the things I never look forward to – especially whenever you’re doing something at a new level, and this was certainly that. But we seemed to have been more prepared than some of the crews in front of us. While we waited for them to sort things out, I realised that i was behind Gwyndaf Evans, which was nice. And he seemed very friendly. We got everything checked, and we were OK. WE even got our coveted “Wales Rally GB” bags, which I was worried we’d been diddled out of.

Finally, back to service, to fit the new extinguisher pull, and all the stickers. Done as Stu says, using a water spray, you can get a really good job with no bubbles. The only problem was the high-visibility numbers for the rear side windows were made of crappy vinyl that didn’t stick very well – I hope they stay put or we’ll have a problem!

So, tomorrow, the final hurdle before the start – scrutineering. I _think_ I have everying sorted out, but there’s always something at a new level that can get you…. The one bonus is I’ve seen the process card already, and nothing in there has made me run away crying, so hopefully we’ll be OK. Tomorrow will tell!