Skoda Rally Blog

Tomorrow, things get even more serious. Up until now the rallies we’ve been doing have all been Single-Venue (SV) events. So basically they’ve been in closed-off areas, be they airfields or training areas or whatever. But tomorrow is the first forest event, and that means two things. First up we’re on gravel, through forest roads! Which is (for me) what rallying is all about – just like the big boys… That also means that we don’t have laps, which is a good thing (especially as it’s reverse seeding, so we’ll be going at the front, possibly even first), but it also means we don’t get maps like we have before, and have ‘proper’ maps, and have to actually navigate. We also have to get from stage to stage – there are 25 miles of stages, and 17 miles of road. And that could get very interesting. I hope everything is going to be OK. I don’t see that it shouldn’t be, really, as we’ll just trundle through the stages like we always do. But it’s a whole new league.

On the car front, I’ve put two new front wheel bearings on, which has got rid of a nasty noise that was coming from the front, and finally got round to fitting the new strut-tops at the same time (as everything was already apart), and now there’s no “click” from the front end, as the strut-top itself wasn’t cracked, but the plastic rim at the top was, leading to the strut moving about under ‘duress’ (i.e. taking off!) – the car is probably in as good shape as it has been since I’ve owned it.

Cue hideous mechanical failure…..