Skoda Rally Blog

Rallying is great fun. I found that out on the very first event I did, at Smeatharpe, all the way back in 2004 – seems like a lifetime ago. Most people take it far more seriously than me, in terms of financial investment, but even at the lowly level that I run at, it can be an expensive hobby. Let’s look at the costs for Abingdon last weekend:

Entry: ?205.
Fuel (there and back): ?50
Fuel (on event): ?30
Tyres (cheap): ?30
Car preparation (routine): ?50

So, for the day that was a total of ?365. And that is incredibly cheap, ‘cos we basically just turned up and ran the car for the day, put fuel in, and then went home. It’s fairly sturdy, but that’s still ?180 each for the day.

As a result of this, I sometimes take on work that I wouldn’t normally do, but I’ll think that I can earn as much in a day as I can spend at a rally, so I’m even over the two days. And that happened this weekend – I was doing Caerwent on the Sunday, and had been offered a chance to do an event which I’d done last year on the Saturday, Dinton Jazz Jamboree. It wasn’t the kind of thing I normally do (providing a PA), but I thought I’d do it anyway. But after I’d agreed (and entered Caerwent), I found out that the event had been lengthened to finish at 11:15 instead of the 10pm of last year. Not good. And these things always run over time. So to cut a long story short, I didn’t get to bed until 1:10am. And had to be up at 4am to go to Caerwent. Not a good start, but we got there OK, with 10 minutes to spare, despite having a Sat Nav software crash meaning I missed a turning and did a dodgy detour!

I left Paul to get the car scrutineered and noise tested as I think it’s time he sees the full terror of all that stuff, and I went and set up in the service area. For once, we had everything nicely set up, and all seemed well. Scrutineering went OK, and we signed on, and then off we went.

Now, I’ve been to Caerwent 3 times before, but this time was quite a change as it was being run “in reverse”, so much of what we’d learned would be redundant, apart from “be bloody careful!”, which would be the watchword of the day. We decided to take a long-term view of the day as finishing was the main objective, to get the second of those valuable signatures.

Stage 1 was upon us fairly quickly, and the first thing I found was that if I didn’t keep a finger in my place on the map as we went round, I’d get lost. If you’ve not seen a map (and if you’ve not competed there, you won’t have done) of Caerwent, then you might think this is silly, but it’s really quite complex, and much of the map can be confused with other parts – imagine a randomly-dropped piece of spaghetti that doesn’t overlap itself but comes close to doing so and you won’t be far off. So I took to looking like a 7 year-old with poor reading skills, which helped greatly. Paul was driving very conservatively on the first stage, but this was fine by me, getting used to the car again, and getting an idea of how slippy things were; the problem here is that the surface can change quite quickly from smooth, grippy tarmac to gravel or broken tarmac, and suddenly…. you’re off!

Stage 2 was a re-run, and without any bravado, a minute was taken off the previous time. Nothing else to report other than improved confidence and braking, although still quite cautious.

Stage 3 involved some changes, but mostly to the end – there was a new section which was where I’d broken down the time that we just did one mile before the driveshaft broke in the Favorit. To say it was dodgy was an understatement. Not really tarmac at all – there were car-battery sized rocks (and pieces of kerb) all over the place, and Paul did well to keep us going and pick through the lot of them without too much trouble. We then headed into a section where it was hard to see where we should go – no arrows, no tape, and if it wasn’t for a group of marshals, we probably wouldn’t have had a clue. Very, very slippy here first time through as well, gravel on tarmac,so all sorts of slidey fun! Didn’t hit anything though, and caught up with a nova going very slowly.

Stage 4 was another re-run, but this time we had a spin – sometimes Paul doesn’t get all his braking done soon enough, and re-brakes in a corner entry, and this spun us round in an awkward spot – we got going before we were caught, but probably lost 20 seconds between that and the next thing we hit – there was a 4″ reinforced concrete post in the middle of the road that we hit – I was reading the map at the time and didn’t see it, but I heard and felt it. We got to the end of the stage without event, but the sumpguard was definitely bent as a result, and this is the thick, forest, 10mm aluminium one!

Now the tiredness was kicking in. On the stage I was OK, but between (particularly queueing before the start) I was feeling pretty tired.

Stage 5 involved some minor changes, including taking out a ‘bus stop’ detour meaning we could take a couple of corners flat in 4th gear which was fun, and Paul was getting far more on it as we went now, although still braking conservatively for the most part, which is fine by me – we were having fun, but staying on the safe side of things as the finish is everything.

Stage 6, much the same again – getting some corners better, and taking some safe cuts, although there were a couple which were a cut too far and resulted in more sumpguard action! Still, that’s what it’s there for, isn’t it?

Finally, Stage 7. By now, things were settling into a pattern, and we were at the back of the field, but only 22 seconds adrift. On the first stage and stage 4 (the spin!), we’d lost time to the mini that was ahead of us, but the rest of the stages we were faster than them. 24 seconds was the amount we’d made up on the last stage, so it was possible that we could get out of last place. But we had to make sure of a finish as well. Paul drove really neatly on this last stage, but we only took 11 seconds out of them, so we finished in last, but we finished.

We had to wait half an hour to get Paul’s licence signed (in case there were any protests), so by the time we went, the place was completely deserted. It took 2 cans of red bull on the way home to keep me going, and as I write this now (Monday morning), I’m still tired. But it was worth it.

We’re 2 for 2. Next up, Essex Charity Stages, July 2nd. And that’s not tarmac!