Skoda Rally Blog

…Longcross (if you didn’t know) is a military test track, near where the M3 and M25 meet. It’s a place that’s renowned for it’s ability to kill cars, and I’d heard rumours that it will be closing soon. It was my first taste of rally spectating at the kind of events I’d be doing, so I really thought it would be a shame not to have a go before it closes. So, we entered the “Spotted Dick and Custard” stages, which ran yesterday.

Drove up early to the rally, leaving about 6:30am. Got there for before 8am, and set up, got noise tested (which was amusing as the car in front had rammed his exhaust with wire wool to quieten it up and it popped out looking like a dead cat!), and scrutineered. All was well. My mate Paul came along (having had problems finding the place, despite having satellite navigation) as I was sure he’d want to do it when he saw what went on, which turned out to be true by the end of the day!

First stage was terrible as the tyre pressures were all wrong – too low at the back, too high at the front – the car was all over the place and really scary in places. It was running well but felt slow compared to the others, and it’s such a wide track you feel like you’re almost in reverse anyway…… The second stage was better with the right pressures, although the track was really difficult – there’s a “snakey” section which has opposite cambers and is designed to test handling, and it certainly did that! The sides of the road are what are apparently called “dutch drains” – the road just drops off steeply (about a foot, apparently) and the trench there is filled with big stones; if you go off it’ll mean serious damage to the car! Didn’t find out, luckily!

But the biggest thing about Longcross is the tank test hill. There are four of them side by side, but we were only using the least steep one, which was still approaching 45 degrees – it’s really steep, and about 80 feet high. We got up to about 60mph on it, and were just getting airborne on the later stages when coming up the hill. By this time there was a loud “clunk” coming from the left front suspension, and it turned out the the top strut mouning had cracked; it consists of a flat plate and a ‘cup’ section, and the two were no longer welded together! Luckily the car’s weight held it in place, and being tapered it wasn’t too much of a problem, although we did wonder if the car would hold together. Luckily, it did, and we finished 43rd overall (of 60 starters), and ahead of two 1600cc cars! We were last in class though. Which is a bummer. Still, we did Longcross, and survived, which is more than can be said by the crew of the two cars that crashed at the top of the hill on SS5 – one (a Mk1 Golf) looked very sorry for itself when towed down – the left front suspension was almost totally ripped off, the windscreen shattered, the sumpguard and exhaust hanging off too. The other car that crashed was leading at the time, so they won’t be best pleased either!

Next up is Caerwent on the 26th September – another Military installation, this one has a fearsome reputation too; the stages are apparently about 7 miles long with over 100 bends per stage! 11″ high concrete kerbs mean any errors are punished severely, and apparently a low-powered car has a good chance there. Which should help us! I’ll just have to get my act together…..

Paul took some photos of us on our merry way round, so here are the best two (note the suspension is working quite hard; we may not be fast, but we are trying!)