Skoda Rally Blog

Today I took the opportunity to sit in with Tony Hawkins in his Audi Quattro.  A fair while ago I sat in with Ray Read in his Quattro at Longcross, and sadly that led to a DNF after the turbo killed itself.  Tony had a chequered history with his quattro (first event was a DNF when the engine blew up, and second was a finish), this being his third event he was hoping just to get some more time in the car and get used to it a bit more.  I’d not met him before today (this is becoming a pattern!), but spoken to him on the phone a few times, and arranged to get to Longcross around 7:30, having heard that the normal service area was currently a movie set.  And this was true – there was a mock coliseum set up in the middle of it; I don’t know what film it was for, but it looked impressive.

However this led to a problem – the service area was at the top of the hill, meaning that the big hills would not be used in the stage layout, and also I thought this may lead to less than ideal stage layouts overall.

Often if you’ve not met someone before it’s hard to find them in a service area.  This wasn’t the case with Tony.  He’d told me the day before he was intending on bringing “a lorry” to the service area.  And he wasn’t wrong – it was a full-on artic and trailer, so quite easy to find.

Said “Hi” and then found out he’d forgotten the keys, so we had to wait until they turned up, and then got the car out and all sorted, and headed off for scrutineering; his least favourite part of rallying as well as mine.   Mostly it went OK, aside from an issue with the seat belt mountings not being right (both top belts were on one mounting), and eventually we found an original mount for the other belt, which was much better than the eyebolt bar that was at the back of the car and didn’t seem too safe to me.

Next to us Ray had been having problems with his car, and had ended up having to disconnect the air flow meter to get it to run properly, and was going to see how it went, and take a view on it after stage 1 – he was 3 places ahead of us, seeded at number 9.

Soon enough it was time to go, and as soon as we got going, I had a revelation.  You know when you’ve finally got round to doing something you’d been putting off for a long time and then thought you should have done it ages ago as it’s so much better?  That’s what happened to me the first time I used the intercom with my nice new Peltor Helmet.  The difference is staggering, nothing less.  The helmet stops the outside noise getting to you by a significant amount, and the quality of the intercom is incomparable with the OMP one I’ve been using – no background noise, and much better quality; you can just talk normally and it’s perfectly loud enough, despite the car being quite noisy inside.

Got to the stage start, booked in and got ready, having discussed how to call the corners; each driver is different and everyone has their own system; with the stages on maps we can at least see what we will be encountering and discuss everything beforehand, and this was good.  We got off the line quickly (the car is not slow), and down to the first “bus stop chicane”, and got down to the chicane to see an unwelcome sight – Ray’s Quattro at a 45-degree angle, having hit a post on the way into the chicane.  Ray and Stu were out of the car and OK, and we took it slowly as we went through, but it’s never good to see a mate out, especially that early.  Going round the rest of the stage saw us get used to each other, and Tony to the car.  One big problem was the synchro on second gear is on the way out, and hurried gear changes don’t work at all well.  And of course second gets used a LOT, so it would need to be looked after or another DNF would loom…  The stage went reasonably well, there were a few moments as Tony was getting used to the brakes, and also a great moment going round a hairpin with the car sliding first on the brakes, then the handbrake and then the power – he got it right first time here, and it felt great, even though I don’t think it was the quickest way to do it! On the last lap the intercooler pipe popped off, leading to no boost pressure and not a lot of power, but we finished the stage without any other problems.

Into service, there was quite a delay for some crews coming back – I think that Ray’s incident led to no more cars starting after us, so we had to wait for all of them to clear the stage before we started again, having re-attached the intercooler pipe and checked the rest of the car over, everything else looking OK.

Stage 2 was a re-run of the previous stage, and this time Tony was a little more confident, particularly on the snake – there are two blind crests there which it’s counter-intuitive to go fast over, even if you are being told to keep going, until you’ve seen that it’s OK there.  We cut over 30 seconds off the stage time this time, and it felt much more like it particularly in the corners on the snake where the car was starting to a) work hard and b) understeer like a Quattro.  The hairpin wasn’t as neatly done this time, and there was one time when the gearbox wouldn’t play ball, so keeping it in second was the order of the day for this from now on.

Back into service, everything seemed fine with the car, and there was a quick turnaround for Stage 3, despite it featuring a reasonably large change leading to taking the snake the other way round.  This went well again, and Tony was seeming far more confident in getting the car round the corners, although again it was getting to the point where there was a fair bit of understeer – not only in the snake, but also going into some of the chicanes – there were a couple of moments where it only just started to grip in time, but it must have looked good from the outside.  Stage 4 was a second run through exactly the same stage, and again we shaved a fair bit of time off the SS3 time by being neater and more committed in the newer sections.

Now it was time.. for lunch!  After Rallyday’s trials yesterday I was pretty tired, so I took the opportunity to take a nap for 20 minutes, and I noted in my rear view mirror that Tony was having his ear bent by someone as I dropped off.  I woke up 22 minutes later, and guess what?  Same guy, still talking!  Sometimes it’s good to be a navigator!

Stage 5 saw the direction round the outside track reversed, and new start and finish points, so all the chicanes would be different and need different lines throughout, as well as a very short merge before the first chicane, which made it difficult to get dead right, but it went OK, and round we went.  By now the tyres seemed to me to be past their best, and there were quite a few moments where the car understeered for a long time, and eventually gripped again, meaning that each chicane would take us nearer the edge of the road.  We were still quick, as the lap setup of the stage meant you sometimes ran with someone faster than you for a while – we were running with number 7 (a new-shape Impreza) and round the outside we were keeping up for the most part.  We dived off into the snake while he went round the outside, and we were about 5 seconds behind him when we re-merged.  On the next lap something similar happened with a Mk.2 Escort, and this time, he emerged from the snake at much the same time as us, showing just how much time we were losing in corners.  The stage went well, though, and with no major issues other than the lack of grip.

Back into service, it was time to change tyres.  Unfortunately Tony only had 2 decent spares, so we put them on the front, and went off out for Stage 6.

Immediately there was a huge difference – on the first chicane the back of the car drifted (as the front gripped) and hit the boards – the car was quite imbalanced now but would at least get the front where you wanted.  Care was needed into the next couple of chicanes to get the braking right and not lose the back, and other than that it went well – once Tony had adapted to it the car went where it should do (for the most part), and we did some rather show-boaty work in a couple of places due to the lack of rear grip.  Not fast, but good fun, for sure.

Back into service, and a check over the car revealed very little needed, so we went back out again after fuelling the car up, and it was time for Stage 7, the last change of layout of the day.  As we went into the chicane there was a lack of brakes; I’m not sure if it was just that the tyres were cold, but what is for sure is that we hit the chicane, and quite hard.  The car seemed OK and to have 4 wheels though, so we got on with it, and I soon noticed that the front right wing (which had taken the chicane impact) was lifting up at speed – I was hoping it wouldn’t break off, as it was well above bonnet level when we got up to top speed (around 110 on the speedo, more, I’m told, in reality), but it seemed to be just bending as it went.  There were a few moments on this stage, one as we came to the chicane where Ray had ended the rally (but in reverse), and some others going into other chicanes, mostly.  The snake was feeling good by now, with the extra grip working well, and Tony confident enough to get the car airborne over the bigger hill.  The end of the stage was a new section, a square left into a square right and then a long straight.  The left went well, but the right… involved a bit of handbrake, and we span.  Which would have been totally innocuous, if it wasn’t for the very deep U-shaped gutter just to the side of the track, separating the road we were using with a differen tarmac surface.  As we went into slow motion, I expected a bang.

And it came – a really hard, heavy BANG and it sounded like a chassis-bender; it was a really, really hard impact, as it was going sideways through the suspension where there is obviously no springing.  Tony gave it some beans and round it came and… into the opposite gutter, but a lot slower.  We got pointing in the right direction and to the finish.  We checked the car still went straight (it seemed OK), and got back to service.

Looking at the car, it was in a sorry state.  The front wing was finished, with a massive split right above the wheel, and the front corner all broken up,  as well as a number of other splits and cracks.  This picture doesn’t do the damage justice – bear this in mind when you buy a car on eBay from pictures only!

And the back left wheel had clearly sacrificed itself to save the rest of the car as the rim itself was split really badly.  Not good as these are genuine Quattro Sport wheels, and quite rare.

Tyre was still up though, but needed to be changed, and alas only for one of the ruined fronts from earlier.  The other side showed signs of damage, but we decided it would be better to keep a slightly damaged wheel with a serviceable tyre than a perfect rim with a knackered one.  The wing was repaired with nuts and bolts and gaffa tape, and away we went for Stage 8.  While not wanting to take it easy, a finish and another signature was on the table.

The stage start went well, and off we went, through the first three chicanes, everything was fine.  We went round a right-hander into a left hander for the right-entry chicane, and the back of the car stepped out.  Right out – it was quickly beyond the “save it” point, and into the “hope this doesn’t hurt too much” point.  We hit the chicane (which was made of tyres, a cone and several pallets) sideways at around 50, I’d guess (we were doing over 100 when the brakes went on), and then span sideways off the track.  I’ve got used to this sort of thing, and for the most part it’s no problem at all, and having seen all the super-calm navigators on the TV, I decided to play my part, and once we’d come to a halt (backwards, facing about 45 degrees up the track), I checked Tony was OK, we re-started and I said just to gently get the car back on the track.  But it wasn’t to be – we were buried in some very deep, soft gravel and quite a way into the bushes – the car was already on its floor, and it was game over.  Marshals were giving the universal “it’s over” signal (like having your neck cut), so we got out, and then got out the way – some people weren’t taking much care despite four waving marshals and a stranded audi, so all 6 of us thought it would be better to be elsewhere, and went there.  Once the stage was finished, the recovery crew came round and pulled us out (and it took a surprising amount of effort, mostly because we took half a tonne of fern and nettles with us), and then we drove back to service to find Tony’s family a bit worried as obviously we’d been long overdue and neither of us had a phone.  Pictures of the stricken Audi are here, big thanks for the Marshals who sent them – Maggie, Mike & Meg Dixon & Pete Thorogood!

So, another Audi at Longcross, another non-finish.  But a damn good day – hopefully Tony will get the car sorted out and back to its snarling glory soon enough for Smeatharpe in October – there wasn’t much damage other than cosmetic stuff, really, and maybe I’ll get a chance to break my Longcross Audi curse at some point.  But not today.