Skoda Rally Blog

Single venue rallies often take place on disused airfields, most often on ones that were made during WW2. As you can imagine, they have usually gone somewhat downhill, meaning they’re rough, broken up and can present quite a challenge to the car in places. So it was quite a pleasant surprise when we went to Colerne airfield, North Wiltshire, to find that it’s a currently-used airbase, and the runway could only be described as billiard-table smooth. I’ve been on rougher race tracks. We got there at 8am, and found that everyone had left the best place for us – right by the burger bar and toilets. It was so well arranged that we didn’t even need to un-hitch the trailer, so we were completely lazy – just drive the car off, and there you go.

Scrutineering may have taken a while (big queue), but was done by the most pleasant, jokey scrutineer I’ve met, ever. It’s always my least favourite part of the day (as there’s the spectre of not being allowed to compete, despite never having failed scrutineering), but this was nice, and everyone in the queue (including Peter Hopkins, who built N158 UBD) was a good laugh. Splendid.

The big downside of airfield events in the Felicia is power. Or rather the near total absense of it. Reason being is that there are long straights – sometimes half a mile long. And in that time the big boys will be doing 130, and getting there very quickly. There was NO car yesterday that was as slow as we are in a straight line – I’m almost certain we were in the only standard car, and even the minis were eating us alive in the straights. But in the corners, we can hold our own, and even make time up on people. Moan over!

So, stage 1 was , well, the first stage. Where we were we could see the queue for the arrival control so there was no problem with timing, etc, and we could be relaxed – indeed this was probably the least nerve-racking day I’ve ever had rallying. Off we went, and found a really nice course, with very well-made chicanes (once you’d worked out what to look for, they were really clear, but the first one was a bit confusing until we got near to it), and generally a good fun stage on some very smooth tarmac – there were a few surprises (including a “long bar chicane” which had lots of dirt/grass on it, which was a slide-off-the-road job) but all good fun and with little of substance to hit and damage the car. We did OK, and the tyres (which were poor on SS1 of Fat Albert) were fine this time out, right out of the box. There were no real dramas on this, and the re-run (SS2) was a good 20 seconds faster.

SS3 had some minimal changes from SS1/2, and was more fun – Paul was starting to get into it a bit, but still being careful so we’d finish. There were some ‘interesting’ noises coming from the engine/box, but it turned out it was just the engine moving a little (not much at all) and tapping the sumpguard) – every time he changed down a gear there was a “clunk”, but it was OK all day. The re-run of this was again quicker than the previous, so that left us half way through the day with the sun still shining (despite some cloud), and with a lengthy break for Paul to hear Liverpool’s poor start to the season!

SS5 was the first “reversed” stage, and there was quite a delay before it started, so we all queued up, 4 cars wide. This gave us 20 minutes to do two things – firstly, see others’ start techniques. If you’ve never seen the start line of a rally stage, then it’s easy to think everyone would look the same, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Firstly, not everyone gives it total death from the start – some are quite reserved, while others just hit the rev limiter and drop the clutch, leaving the tyres to do all the work, with wonderful (but probably not very good for the car) results. But it’s not just that – the difference between the cars is also important. A 4wd car just seems to be pulled by an invisible force – very little wheelspin, just being catapaulted forwards at unreasonable speed. The RWD cars look best – wheelspinning, making lots of noise, and going quickly, but not as fast as the 4WD cars. Finally, there’s the FWD cars, which spin a fair bit more, but some of them really shift. So that was fun. However, there was far more fun – there was a bend which was new, and seeing people come down to that and get it a bit (or in some cases totally and utterly) wrong, and then watch the marshals play ‘replace the cones’ was very good fun. The stage itself was good fun, and Paul was getting much better at using the full width of the track and braking a bit nearer the mark.

SS6 was a bit damp – there had been a bit of rain in the service area, but not enough to worry about. But the far side of the stage was quite wet, and when we got out there (on dry tyres), there were some…er…. moments! We were only 12 seconds slower than the previous time, so not too bad (some lots plenty more, some less).

And then the rain came. What I can only describe as a downpour of biblical proportions occurred – I stepped outside the Pajero to check our start time, and was instantly soaked. This was a problem – as I don’t do a lot of tarmac (and ‘cos Paul killed the previous wets), I don’t have a big supply of tyres. So I’d brought some standard, cheapo remould tyres (off the car I broke a while back), “just in case it really chucks it down”. Well, it was really chucking it down, so we bunged ’em on, with just minutes to spare. Paul was a little worried about using these tyres (because they were thin and cheap), but I was sure they’d be the best choice. Looks like I was right – there was a remarkable amount of grip, given that the stage was covered in standing water – there was a bit of 70mph aquaplaning, and the sound of the water on the bottom of the car was quite loud. We did well considering all this, and looking at other cars going round made me realise just how wet it really was – the other cars seemed to be going through a river. When we got to the previously dirty chicane, it was now a puddle. I said to just “go for it”, and we did – the splash was great, and there was a car broken down just after it, which looked to have given in to the water! Second lap was just as fun, but no-one there to photograph it.

SS8, the last of the day, was a re-run. The rain had mostly stopped in the service area, but the track was still soaking, so we stuck with the tyres we had (partly from laziness!), and off we went. It was going OK, until we got caught by someone in a Mk.2 who was being, frankly an impatient git. He nearly hit us and in our attempts to get out of the way we hit a cone (not the first of the day!), and it got stuck under the front of the car. I thought it would just ping off, but it didn’t. We did half a lap with it there until I told Paul to pull over and reverse off it, as the smell was terrible, it was actually slowing us down, and pushing water over the front of the car. Despite this issue, we still beat the old time by nearly 10 seconds, so it would have been much, much faster if not for that.

But we finished. Overall, a great day (oh, and overall, 38th!), and (a tedious hour later) another signature.

That makes us 5 for 5. And only one more to go. Longcross, September 3rd. Three days after that, the regs for WRGB come out, and we’re one step closer to realising a dream.