Skoda Rally Blog

This weekend was the first time sitting in with Tony Hawkins in his 1400 205, as he’s entered the 205 Challenge 1400 championship.  Tony’s done a few SV events, but nothing involving gravel, and as the Audi Quattro is currently being rebuilt after a fairly major off at Brean the 205 was the ideal car.  The 205 cup has 5 rounds for the 1400s, although the first one has already gone, leaving 3 gravel and 1 tarmac event for the rest of the year.  This event was the Plains rally, which is a well-supported event which takes in some classic mid/north Wales stages, and is based in Welshpool.  Accomodation is always at a premium for this event, so Tony had bought a camper (not only for rallying, but handily in time for this event), and we agreed to meet up at the Trailer park, which was a few miles from scrutineering.

Camper and 205.

As it was a Friday, driving the 225 miles to there from Bournemouth was a long trek, taking 4.5 hours, and I arrived at 6:30, about 10 minutes after Tony, and saw the camper for the first time,a big 1970s American number, and Tony just starting to unload the 205.  It soon became apparent that the camper had a couple of teething troubles, so we thought it best to get the 205 through scrutineering first and worry about getting the camper to the Woodyard  later on (where scrutineering was, alongside camping and the last stage of Saturday too).
The drive to scrutineering was only about 5 miles, and the car was nice and smooth, with no rattles or other issues that some cars have, and scrutineering was the usual fare – always the most nerve-racking part of the event for me (even though it’s not my car!), and I had an interesting moment when I was told that my helmet would not be eligible for Rally GB as everyone needs the new helmet standard; when I told the scrutineer that it was only Priority 1 & 2 drivers that the rule applied to he said that was the first he’d heard of it, so I hoped that what I read was correct, and I’d not wasted £400 on a helmet that I can’t use…

205, all scrutineered nicely.

That aside all went swimmingly, so we popped down to Rally HQ in the centre of town to sign on, and then we were ready to go.  Well, ready to go to the trailer park to see if we could resurrect the ailing camper.  We left my car there, and I drove the 205, all of about 400 yards before the camper (which had seemed to be going quite slowly) disappeared from view.  I went back and found that it had just died, but swapping over to petrol did two things – firstly it got it running again (it has an LPG conversion) and secondly that it was VERY juicy, as it had used a full tank of LPG (about 30 gallons) with Tony driving from Camberley!
We got to the campsite after an “interesting” drive in the 205 – the screen was really greasy and a bit of light rain left me unable to see at some points, something that needed fixing before the stages for sure – and got set up quickly enough, and the camper is an interesting beast – VERY 70s inside, with rather rustic wooden fittings, and some interesting “mood lighting” as well, with a sort of geometric stained glass vibe there and in the toilet window.  All seemed good though, aside from the charging issue for the main batteries, and when set up a good meal was had, while we planned for tomorrow.
Saturday started out really bright, although a bit chilly, and we packed everything into the car for the day ahead, and spoke to a few people about, and managed to blag some screen cleaner from Jon Payton in the Micra behind us (thanks Jon), which did the trick.  Tony found the calm before we set off a bit odd – usually the Audi has been in need of things sorting out before every event (and indeed every stage), so having a car which was ready to go was unusual.  Very nice though, and hopefully that’s how it would stay all day.

Ready to go?

We triple-checked we had all we needed (me in particular as forgetting your time card, road book or pacenotes would be a BIG problem), and then set off to the start, which was in the centre of Welshpool, and a nicely done affair by the town hall, with (I assume) the mayor of the town waving us off eventually, and we were off.  I’d forgotten, of course, that this was all new to Tony – he’s only done Single Venue events before, so having a road section and the ‘adventure’ of getting to the stages was new.  In the light of us having no service crew, and Tony getting used to gravel and having notes read to him, we’d elected to take it fairly easy, and filled the car up so there should be nothing to worry about for the rest of the day, and then off through the beautiful Welsh countryside to stage 1, Gartheiniog 1; this would be the only stage that would be repeated during the day – it would also be stage 5, hopefully!
The road section was good, with the last couple of miles on forest road and the escorts in front of us taking advantage to get warmed up, and Tony did the same, and then we queued up ready for the start.  Tony doesn’t normally get nervous, but said he was this time, and I guess the start queue being on a road with a drop on the outside probably didn’t help that feeling.  We eventually got to the start line, and then we were away.  The first section had a few big drops to the side, and fresh air bends (where missing would mean a drop which you wouldn’t get the car back from in a hurry), so this combined with everything else meant Tony took it very steadily, and rightly so when about a mile in we saw a car off at one of said fresh air bends, with only the tailgate visible.  Going like this obviously had a real impact on our time, and we got caught by the car behind (Jon Payton) about half way through, which wasn’t great as Tony then sped up a bit <i>too</i> much, so I told him to forget about them and just carry on getting up to speed in his own way; it was clear that the new surface as well as being read notes was taking a bit of time to get used to, but towards the end of the stage we started to speed up a bit, and there were no disasters;  Yes, we’d been very slow, but we’d got to the end, and Tony seemed happy about it.  We moved off to get to SS2 and saw the other 205 with Ant Northover, pulled over replacing a flat tyre.  The road section to SS2 was reasonably short, but had a passage control where I realised the finish marshal had written the wrong time on the card; fortunately I’d made a note of the right time, and pointed this out to the PC marshal; it was obvious there was an error as the finish time was another 20 minutes into the future giving us a stage time of about 45 minutes; I know we were slow, but we weren’t THAT slow!  Soon enough we were at Dyfi and ready to go again.  This stage went a bit better, although still being very cautious; there were a few places which were a bit rough, and the changes in surface were something Tony was getting used to, as well as learning how to get the 205 round hairpins – it seemed that a bit of handbrake to get the back end out was the best solution for the tighter hairpins, although getting it just right was something that would need practice for the rest of the day.  We were slowest on this stage, but this time by a smaller amount; still not going as quickly as possible, but getting the car a bit quicker and looser, and Tony seemed to be getting into it more, needing the calls repeated a bit less often.  Then it was off to SS3, Pantperthog.

Ready for Stage 3.

Again this was an improvement – the corners seemed to be making more sense to Tony and there was a bit less caution being taken on some of the bends with drops.  About a mile from the end we had to stop as there was a car rolled, and Jon had stopped to get them back on their wheels (they were on the course, pretty much), although by the time we’d stopped they were back on their wheels, but we went slowly to the next radio point, which was the finish line, losing a lot of time in the process (even by our standards!) – we were later awarded a nominal time for this, as obviously safety is the main concern.  Just after the flying finish we saw Ant had buried his 205 in the shrubbery, but got it out easily enough with some spectator help, apparently, and the rolled car pulled up soon after.
And as easy as that, it was off to service, which was at a place called Dylife, in what was basically a quarry pit by the main road.  There had been a diversion as a lorry was blocking the rally route, and we were told about this, but not told we would get an extra 5 minutes to do the new route; we got there on time easily (had a couple of minutes spare), and booked in on time (or so I thought!).  “Service” consisted of checking the car over (there were no problems, other than a bit of stone stuck between a rear tyre and the rim)

Work to do - remove a stone.

–  and then having some food!

Nice relaxed service.

Very relaxing, although my back problem was really starting to come back at this point; it was fine on the stages but on the relatively long road section to service it was really painful, and getting out of the car for a stretch and the lie down was a real relief.  After half an hour of slacking off, it was time to head off for Hafren, which is a stage I’d done before in 2008, although obviously there are many different layouts possible in there.  The entry road was very familiar, and once we’d booked in, there was a long queue for the stage start as there had been a stoppage, so we took the time to have a chat with Ant and Dave Northover in the 205 in front of us, who hopefully we’ll be seeing more of this year on the other events.
After about a 25 minute delay, we got into SS4, Hafren, and this was a chance to drive on a ‘classic’ stage, and it went pretty well, all things considered.  Obviously we’re still not up to speed and Tony was taking it carefully, but we were probably about 30 seconds down on where we’d have expected to be over the course of this stage, and we lost a fair bit of that in a couple of dodgy hairpins, so again it wasn’t a disaster by any stretch of the imagination.  Tony was getting a bit more confident in what the car would do, and taking better lines into corners and planning ahead; he was starting to want the information from the notes a bit sooner which is always a good sign, and it was good fun for the 10 minutes it lasted.
After Hafren came the re-run of Gartheiniog, and it was quite a change – when we got there and queued for the start, Tony’s demeanour was completely different, he was feeling good and confident about what was coming, and it went a lot better – again, not as fast as we could have gone by any stretch of the imagination, although there were a couple of moments where we needed to slow down, but it went smoothly and we trimmed 2 minutes off of the time of the first time through, and didn’t get caught in there either (although the MG pulled up to the stop control fairly quickly after we had done).  Improvement was the name of the game, and I think this was it; another run through would have seen it a lot quicker, but that’s for the next event!

Stage 5 in action

SS6 was just off the end of SS5, and apparently quite a few people had got it wrong as there was a junction in the road book which wasn’t really clear (although as the arrival control was under 0.1 miles away, it’d soon become apparent), but a nice chap waiting there for someone told us to go left, so we did, and we were in; the nice chap on the start control moved us up a minute as we were ready to take the stage already, and away we went.  Again this went well, although at only 3 miles it was over all too soon, even in the 205 at this speed!  There was a long road section to a holding control now, and on the way we started to smell gearbox oil very strongly.  We stopped to check it, and I needed to get out anyway as again I was in real pain by this point, but the car seemed fine with no sign of a leak, and with the car seeming OK and me in slightly less pain, we carried on to the holding control, where a load of other cars were already waiting (the road timings were nice and generous), and we had a text from Tony’s mate telling us off for booking in early at TC1, which was service in.  I was sure I’d got us in at the right time, but after chatting to some others (some of whom had the same problem) it became clear that the marshal who told us of the route change had forgotten to tell us there was extra time.  Tony wasn’t happy about it, and although I knew it wouldn’t make any difference to the results, I agreed and queried it with a marshal who promised to phone it through.
Then there was a short run to stage 7, which is the Woodyard.  This is where we’d camped and scrutineered, and there are fields on hills with tracks on them, and a small repeated lap so it was possible we’d see other traffic.  Fortunately that wasn’t the case as the 205 really struggled to get going on a couple of the steep hills (although it was quick down them!), and it was pretty dusty too.  Some good stuff (such as the hairpin) was slightly cancelled out by the roughness when Tony was worried I’d be a cripple by the end of the stage, or that the car would die, but we got to the end OK, and that was the competitive part of it over – we just needed to get into town to cross the finish line at the Town Hall again, which happened easily enough; I put in a written query over the service time penalty (reasoning that if I’d been told then we would obviously not have booked in at the original time we were given, and that we weren’t alone in this), and later we were pleased to find out that the penalty had been removed.  Tony wasn’t so pleased to find out that we’d still finished dead last, but overall we were about 7 minutes off of Ant’s time in the 205, which isn’t the disaster it initially sounds like – we’d lost a couple of minutes or more in the first stage, and with Tony up to speed in the next event things will be a lot closer.
Now something very odd happened; we’d finished an event before lots of other cars!  We took the opportunity to go back to the camp site and then watch the rest of the field come through.  Some of the over-1400cc cars struggled to get up the hill in the woodyard like we had, and a few made a real meal of it, but then the 4WD class came though, and the first of which was Steve Perez in his Focus WRC.  And it was incredible – watching just how quickly the car accelerated compared with the mere mortalmobiles which had been through before, just how hard he could brake, and how much grip it seemed to have.  He was gone in an instant.  The following cars were still quick, but not as impressive.  Tony was really looking forward to seeing Andy Burton in the Peugeot Cosworth, and when he didn’t appear next, he said he must have had a problem, but I reminded him that sometimes Andy will take time on a road section and use his penalty-free lateness to best effect, to give him better stage conditions or reduce the chance of catching someone on stage, and it was what transpired; he was a few cars down the road, but even before we saw it, we knew it was the beast; it has such an amazing sound that it couldn’t be anything else.  Everyone on the hillside stopped and watched it fly round the track, hypnotised by the sound and the sight of this near-mythical beast.  And as soon as he was gone, most people had seen what they wanted to see.  We stood in a place where we knew it would drive past, and I took a few pics as it did so.

The mighty beast. Oh, the sound!!!

The other cars we watched were good, but that was the best by miles, and went on to win by 25 seconds, no mean feat against Mr. Perez in his ex-works Focus WRC!
Now there was a practical element to take care of; the camper.  It wouldn’t start.  So we needed some jump leads, and took the opportunity to go pick up the trailer and my car allowing for a quick getaway in the morning.  Let’s just say it took 90 minutes of charging off my car to do the trick…,

Power needed.

and also that my Focus doesn’t have the grip needed to move a heavy plant/car trailer in a wet field, whereas the big old heavy V8-powered camper does without a problem.  The air suspension proved invaluable in getting it hitched onto the trailer, and once everything was set up and packed up, we had a good BBQ outside, and a nice relaxing evening after a fairly long day.

BBQ time.

The next event in the 205 is the Swansea Bay Rally in mid July, which will give Tony a chance to do what’s needed to the 205 (which is, let’s face it, not a lot!!!), and me a chance to sort out my back problems, with any luck.  Swansea should be much more like it.