Skoda Rally Blog

Well, it started well enough. We got through scrutineering with no problems, got signed up and were ready for Saturday morning. Even managed to get up early, get a good breakfast from the excellent B&B, and get set up in service with time to spare. The car was being a little difficult to start, but nothing that a bit of patience wouldn’t sort out. And off we went! Paul’s first time didn’t really show – he was having no problems getting us about and using the Terratrip, and seemed quite at home.

However, getting to SS1 meant quite a climb, and we were swamped with fog! And I mean swamped – we could see very little in front of the car, and this made it quite difficult. Stage 1 had been decribed variously as being difficult, horrible and dangerous by others we’d met (there’s a big ‘fresh air’ drop on the outside which would be a rally and probably life-ending error), but we got through it, albeit very slowly – we nearly got caught by the car behind. Paul’s timing needed a bit of work, but given that it was his first attempt, and that the conditions were awful, I think he did well. Getting to SS2 involved a little “emergency service” stop, which was a surprise, but we got to the next stage without problems, and then doing that was good – better visibility, less chance of imminent death, and a good run. Next up was the 10-mile SS3 which was OK, but again rose up into an incredibly foggy area. We saw quite a few cars off in various places, some of them unbelievable – half way up trees and so on. And at the end of SS3 (and I mean within 100 feet of the finish) Steve and Fiona Colville had gone off, which fortunately didn’t look nasty. There was a problem on SS4 which meant we had about 30 minutes to wait while they recovered a car that was precariously off the stage and looked like it was going to drop far further. We finally got going on it, but it was under a mile, so over as soon as we’d started!

Back to Butlin’s for the service, which just involved changing the wheels (ourselves!) and taking on some water and food, and then off to the infamous Porlock Toll road. I decided to go with full wets as it was pretty wet everywhere, and the car was handling really nicely on them – really confidence inspiring. We got to the start of the stage, and then off we went. And it wasn’t as slippery as everyone had told us – a bit slick in places, but not the treacherous experience I was thinking was about to happen. But once more when we got to the top of the road, the fog was there, and it was really hard to get any decent speed up – there were places where the pace notes were a little ambiguous, and it was hard to go fast when you can only see 20 metres in front of the car at best. But we got to the end, only to see Jason and Andres from Bournemouth had crashed right at the end. They were OK, with marshals with the car, but their race was run. We looped round back to the start, and this time were only 30 seconds in front of an Evo, number 22. In other words, someone at the pointy end. Now, personally, I can see that it’s difficult to arrange the order of re-run stages so we don’t mingle with each other, but it’s silly not to avoid it as clearly I’m going to be way slower than someone like that, and it’ll just hold up both of us – me from looking in my mirrors and having to pull over, and the guy behind from me being in the way. Not good, and we got caught by two of them, although the last one was only right at the end, and there was nothing I could do about that.

Back to service, for forest tyres again, and more chocolate. And then off to Stage 7, which was a re-run of SS1. The fog had lifted a fair bit now – not completely gone, but enough to make things more fun as you could at least see what was coming up. Paul had really got the hang of things now, and aside from one dodgy moment in tracks near the fresh air drop it was all going well….. And then going round a hairpin near the end of the stage…. BANG! We lost drive almost completely. And then we did – just really bad knocking when I tried to accelerate. I thought one of the driveshafts had broken, so we just managed to get out of the way up the road (handily, as anywhere else on the stage would have been seriously dodgy/dangerous), and I had a look, and lo and behold, the inner CV joint had broken. So that was that! End of event. Which really gutted me as we were just getting going and the weather was getting better. Called in, and then had to sit for a couple of hours while everyone else came past (disadvantage of running near the front!), and then get towed out of stage, seeing a few cars off after us, including an Astra that was right down a ravine near the end. No problem, it had just slid down there, but it looked tight to get out of!

But now we were stranded in the middle of nowhere (well, 8 miles from Minehead, at least), and no way to get back. Paul was just about to phone a taxi when a guy who had been Marshalling came past and asked if we wanted a tow! He hitched us up, and off we went. Soon we were back at service, and a big big BIG thanks to the guy in the silver Focus estate from Burnham-on-Sea Motor Club. Very very much appreciated, that. We parked the car in the service area, and packed up. And went home. Left the car there, and went to get it this morning with a new driveshaft – 25 minutes later it was running again, and driveable. So, not bad in all – Paul seemed to enjoy himself, although I had some dodgy moments in the fog – I guess it’s having total confidence in the pacenotes and your driving ability in such conditions. I haven’t got any confidence in my car control ‘skills’ in such situations, so it was painful in places. But as Paul said “No-one died”. How true!