Skoda Rally Blog

We decided to be super-prepared this time, so we went up the day before and got the car scrutineered on the Saturday afternoon, leaving us to relax in the evening. Except we couldn’t relax because we’d forgotten the gazebo! So we had to scour Newport for a B&Q which we eventually found (the directions from the rather terse locals were less than accurate), only to be confronted with the obvious – they’d sold out. And Kev managed to douse himself with petrol, so we had to go clothes shopping too, and have the van stink of petrol all weekend! Still, it’s a laugh. Had a great meal with a few other teams (Steve & Fiona, Gary and Ricky from BDCC and a couple of others we didn’t know, but now do), and then an early night at the finest B&B possible for ?22.50 – a nearly new house, a really nice owner, and (best of all) right by the entrance to Caerwent. A perfect start to the day.

We got in there, and saw all sorts of hard-core machinery in the trailer park. And then followed the car in front who seemed to know where they were going. But didn’t, and we ended up driving some of the stage! It was really narrow, and the kerbs weren’t the 11″ concrete we’d been told about, but were just normal in most places. But still, if you hit one of them at 80 mph, then it’s going to get messy, isn’t it…..

We all decided to service together, which was a nice friendly atmosphere, and just had to get two new front tyres from James and get them fitted. They looked really good – I know that stuff like that doesn’t matter, but they looked really hard-core and expensive. I hoped they’d grip as well as they looked.

The first stage took a long time to get going, and there was a massive queue. And then it got cancelled. We heard all sorts of rumours of rolled cars, fires and bad arrowing, but it turns out someone had binned their car, and crawled back onto the stage and blocked it in a bad place, so that was that. We just had to roll through the finish to get our next start time, but no-one told us about that so we ended up being almost last on the road. Bummer.

Due to the new order, we spoke to the guys who’d be behind us (in a 2 litre Escort) just to say hello and tell them to flash when they inevitably come up behind us, as we’re in a slow Skoda and it was bound to happen. They seemed really nice, and said they were just shaking the car down, so might not catch up! Yeah, whatever guys!

Finally we got onto the stages! What a shock! A couple of people had told me it would be the closest thing to closed-roads rallying that I’d find in the UK and I can’t argue with that – it was excellent – really narrow in places, and the kerbs really could bite, and Kev really had his work cut out navigating – this was definitely his finest hour, as there were a lot of times when I couldn’t see beyond the corner in front, so I needed him to tell me if there was a straight, or another corner or whatever. On your own this would be a nightmare, but with him it was spot on. The new tyres were amazing – grip wasn’t the word, they were just fantastic – lots of grip, stable on the brakes and loads of feedback – you could tell exactly what was going on, totally the opposite of the Pirellis I had on there before. The stage was only 8 miles, and we went reasonably well – didn’t get overtaken by anyone, which isn’t bad in that time, I reckon. On our way round, we noticed a LOT of broken down cars – some really hard-core machinery (Imprezas, etc) sat sadly by the side of the road, while the Skoda motored on by! At one point the stage was blocked by a beached Escort and we had to drive on the grass to get past, but at least the stage wasn’t stopped. We thought it had been, and stopped before getting waved past, and lost some time. Others did the same, and one guy even thought the stage was stopped and was coasting back until he got overtaken!

SS3 got cancelled when we were in the queue as another car had blocked the stage, and this was getting silly – effectively it had cost us ?90 to do 8 miles. Not good, and all the crews affected (the last 15 or so) were really hacked off by now, as we’d done 1/4 the mileage of the front runners who had been unimpeded. And the big gaps between stages (time wise) would have allowed us a crack at running. Not happy at all.

SS4 was 14 miles! More of the same, but with a bit more confidence. This stage was a 2-lapper, and we got overhauled by Mandy Twynham on her second lap (our first), so I let her go by and then attempted to keep up. Didn’t do a bad job either – I reckon we lost about 6 seconds in that time, which wasn’t too bad. Another guy came past in his Mk2, which was flying, and then he got stuck behind a Mini. The mini guy just refused to get out of the way, despite it being a long straight (in fact several), and the Escort was clearly quicker than it (indeed so was the Skoda!). Eventually, the Mk2 had enough, and dived inside the Mini, and as a result the mini went straight on at the bend! We took advantage and shot past him! Funny thing was that the Mk2 was on lap one, and missed the split (which was badly signposted), so we overtook him as a result! He didn’t catch us up at any point, and I felt everything was really coming together. We weren’t doing every corner at the max, but it was good.

SS5 was a slightly shorter, and more of the same. Except this time we got lapped by a 2.5 V6 Calibra, and tried keeping up with that! On the straights he (obviously) walked away, but in the bends we were matching him and even catching him in places. With a bit more power we could really go well. Oh, and a bit more skill too! There were more cars littering the place, including a rolled Mini, and a 205 placed on the outside of a really tight bend, just waiting to get clouted! All the crews looked dejected as we sped past in our little Favorit!

SS6 was much the same, but we managed to cut 18 seconds off the time, as things were really coming together now and I tried harder on every corner – the lines were getting better and I took a few liberties where it looked safe to do so.

We ended up finishing 50th out of 102 starters, but there were only 56 finishers. Still, we finished, and we still have our 100% finishing record! We may be slow, but we do get there in the end. And have a bloody good time in the process. Excellent. Caerwent really is one of the most exciting places I could imagine rallying in – great fun, and a real challenge for both driver and navigator and the car too. There were some long-ish straights, and we got up to 80 at one point, which isn’t bad in the little Skoda. Others were banging off the rev limiter in 5th, being 130mph. And our times were seriously down on everyone else’s, even in our class. But we’ll get there. Possibly most important is that I now have four signatures on my licence, which is mission accomplished! I can now do ‘National A’ events, which is the plan so I can do the Sunseeker next year.

Also nice was a few people were amazed that I drive the car home after the events. “What happens if you crash or the car breaks?” ‘Dunno, I’ll worry about that when it happens’, etc. And one guy came over to ask:

“Do you drive it to the events and home?”
‘Yes’
“Where are you from”
‘Bournemouth’
(amazed)”Now that’s Motorsport!”

Nice.

However, on the drive home, it became apparent that the car was a little unhappy. The engine and box are fine, but I think the front wheel bearings have seen better days – there’s a bit of a rattle from both sides now, so I’d better fix that before our first forest event, Newton Abbot Audi stages, 10th October – less than two weeks!