Skoda Rally Blog

After having had a good think about it (and a few inspirational conversations), I thought it was worth giving a serious go at taking on Rally GB again this year; the car won’t be eligible forever (will it, FIA?), and there is precisely zero chance I’ll be able to afford a homologated car in the future; there look to be fewer and fewer options for affordable rallying at International level in the future, so this really could be it.

So, I made use of Bryan Hull’s excellent RallyMatcher website to see if anyone was interested in navigating with me this year.  And fortunately after some further discussion it’s looking good, as I have Brynmor Pierce sitting in with me – he’s got loads of experience and is really keen to do Rally GB, and handily is from North Wales and knows a number of the stages like the back of his hand.  He also lives near Llandudno which will make the logistics of the start of Recce and the start of the event much easier to deal with, something which I thought could have been a problem.  In addition, he has a car which we can use for the recce, so it’s all looking good really.  Just so you know who he is, he’s handily sent me “the cheesiest image possible”, so I shall put it here, with no comment other than that!

However, standing between us doing that in mid-November is some work on the car.  As it stood at the beginning of the weekend, it wasn’t actually that bad; it runs and drives and I’d probably be happy to take on a one-day event in the car with a bit of minor re-prep, but I’d rather get the car just right (plus there’s one thing that definitely needed fixing as you will see in a bit).  So, I’ve spent the weekend doing the car (in between the rain showers).

First issue was the exhaust, or more precisely the exhaust manifold.  This has been a hideous bugbear since the car was built in 2007; it was bought from “The Idiot”, and as such was a badly-beaten and bodged-back-together collection of tubes that never fitted particularly well, and which leaked – from a couple of places that were inaccessible due to the way the four tubes met, plus the joint to the system was always a terrible sliding joint that both rattled and leaked.  Really not good, but always the kind of thing I tolerated and never got round to fixing.  However, a while ago I bought a nice ex-kit car manifold from James Johns (who is rebuilding his Felicia and has gone for a very nice stainless replacement for it), and now was the time to fit it.  This may sound straightforward, but it’s not for two reasons; firstly removing the old manifold meant fully removing the old system and loosening the engine mountings and swinging the engine forwards to get enough room to remove it (it’s  a large single piece of pipework), and then the system needed to be modified slightly to fit the new joint (which has a proper flange instead of a horrific sliding affair which leaked like a sieve).  This meant I needed to get my TIG welding kit out (as the system is stainless), and to make a nice job of it took most of a day, with measurements,modification and checking it all on the car before final welding up and refitting.  And that’s a day’s work which in between the showers meant it didn’t get fitted until this morning.

Nice leak-free manifold.

Dutifully as soon as it was fitted, the car fired up, and it was definitely a case of good and bad; the good news was that the exhaust didn’t leak at all, and didn’t rattle – it’s spot on. The bad news is that this now meant I could hear just how rattly the engine is!  The bottom end was already down for a rebuild as it’s sounded very tired towards the end of the last two events that it’s done, so right after this everything will be ordered to rebuild it, hopefully to be fitted in a couple of weekends’ time.

Next up was the issue that definitely needed doing – the left rear Proflex shock has sprung a leak!  It has leaked oil while the car has been stood up, and it looks like the union from the reservoir to the shock body is leaking, so that will need to be sent off for a re-oil and gas; not hugely expensive, but probably north of £100.  So that was removed and stripped ready to be sent off, and a standard one refitted to keep the car rolling.

After that I replaced the old Terratrip 303 with a 404 that I got cheap on eBay which seems to work OK (and better than the 303 which was at best erratic!).  Again, should be straightforward but as the mounting holes are in different places meant an hour rather than 10 minutes.  And then I just went round the car to make a list of things that need to be bought, serviced or replaced.  The list at present looks like this:

• Rebuild spare bottom end and fit to car
• Replace Driver’s Seat (as it’s now out of date)
• Replace Plumbed-In extinguisher Mountings (FIA rules have changed on this)
• Get both extinguishers serviced (they need to be done every 2 years)
• Get rear damper re-built

On top of that there’s a bunch of cosmetic stuff, but that’s not too bad a list – Aside from the bottom end rebuild everything else is a straightforward “pay for something and then bolt it back on in very little time” – obviously there’s a fair bit of money to spend there (about £700, I think), but it’s not too big in terms of hours aside from the engine rebuild.

So, all systems go, I think!  More to follow as soon as I know more details, or have taken some pictures of something.

It’s been a while since I’ve done any updates, but that doesn’t mean I’ve not been busy.  I’ve just mostly been busy doing other things, although there was some chance of a drive at Ypres but this fell through last week; in anticipation of that I’d got the car back on the road and ready in case, so it’s actually in good shape – the suspension is all back in place having been reassembled and lubricated, and the car ran 100%, which was good of it.  But it wasn’t to be as the deal fell through, sadly.

Today has seen the publication of Rally Guide 1 for Wales Rally GB 2011, and having had a read through and looked at the stages and timings, it looks like it would be a real challenge – the event starts in the North of the country, and has service in Builth Wells for the duration of the event, with lots of new stages and it would be a massive logistical challenge to undertake for someone like me – there’s a fair bit of movement in terms of sleeping and so on both for recce and during the event.

But of course this is all largely theoretical; while the car is eligible for the event and I have my 2011 International Licence, I am short of two things:

1) A Navigator.  Paul isn’t able to do Rally GB again unfortunately due to family commitments, so that’s a huge blow – it’s not just the navigating side of things that he’s excellent at, we also have a good laugh in the car, and on long road sections that’s important.  Plus he’s about the most organised person I know, and totally unflappable, which has been very useful in the past on many occasions.

2) Money.  To do Rally GB typically costs about £4000, plus any damage and repairs and so on after the event.  It obviously means a lot of time to be committed by me as well to get the car and everything else ready, but that’s an aside – the event is about £4k to do for the week, all in.

So, I’m really not sure what to do.  I’d love to do it again, especially as the event is once more completely different, and it would be a huge challenge.  But I’d need to find a navigator who sees the event in the same way I do, and is willing to put in a significant amount of money to do the event.  And I think that will probably be as much of a challenge as the week in mid-November.  Answers on a postcard…

I don’t think it can ever be a good sign on the morning of a rally when you get a text saying “Hi Darren, No Camper, Bring Tent”.  Particularly so when the rally is in Mid Wales in April and rain is forecast.  But that’s how Friday started, so I got my camping gear out before I went to work, and after work came home, had lunch, packed everything into the car and then set off for Welshpool for the Plains.  I’d done this last year with Tony in his 205, and this year he’d bought a BMW 325 from Pat Flynn as he wanted to do the BMW challenge and he’d really got on well driving RWD when he’d been to Sweden for Pat’s Ice Driving course (something I want to do at some point…).  However he’d only got the car a couple of weeks before, and it was only MOTd during the week, so I was expecting there to be a few things to do here and there.

Due to the M5 being closed and it being a Friday afternoon, it took over 5 hours to get to the trailer park near Welshpool, and coincidentally I arrived just as Tony did, so we parked up and unloaded the car.

The Beemer Arrives!

Two things were apparent – firstly that the car looked like it had had a hard life (turns out it’s been used a LOT, both for rallies and rally cross), and secondly…. there wasn’t a passenger seat!

Wot no seat?

This, apparently, was all covered though as Tony had arranged to borrow one, we just had to fit it before scrutineering.  We did, however, have a third crew member in the car:

The third man.

This would be interesting as we only had half an hour to get to the Woodyard, get the seat, fit in and get scrutineered! We managed all this, borrowing the seat from another Darren Jones (with his very tidy newly-prepared 325), although as soon as I saw it was a Motordrive one I feared the worst (their stock seats are NARROW, and I am W-I-D-E), and this was confirmed once I sat in it – it was very tight.  Still, nothing else to be done – the seat got bolted in and we passed noise and scrutineering without issue, handily.

After having a chat with another BMW crew (John O’Gorman and John Rutter), and examining their very high ride height and stiff setup, we set off for town to do all the paperwork, and while chatting found out that a couple of rooms had become available as a crew had to go home, so John O’Gorman phoned the hotel to check if they were free (they were) and if we could take them.  He handed the phone to Tony who was just about to give them some details when John changed his mind and decided that he’d take the hotel rooms and we could go to the B&B that he had booked instead; he’d not been to the B&B but fancied the Hotel over it.  Fair enough, we had somewhere to stay and it was raining and getting a bit cold.  We headed off to the pub, had a chat (hearing some hilarious stories of the two John’s rallying antics) and found out that the pub was where they were now staying.  I neglected to tell them that while I’d been in the loo there was a cockroach on the floor, and wondered how bad the B&B would be… particularly as it was getting late, so we headed off to the Woodyard to pick up Tony’s stuff, and then to the B&B.  Or we would have, had the Johns not broken down and wanted us to come get one of them, so we went off again to pick one up and drop him at the woodyard.  We found the B&B (handily it was on the main road and had a clear sign), and couldn’t believe our luck – it was lovely!  John O had definitely robbed himself here; we had a good night’s sleep and a great breakfast; I wouldn’t be staying another night but Tony needed to get a new trailer tyre which would be on Sunday morning.

Saturday started out bright and sunny, a pleasant surprise given the doom-laden forecast I’d heard all day Friday!  We went to get the car (we’d left it in the woodyard), to find that it had been moved as we’d left it in part of the stage, which was now set up!  We said Hi to a number of people including Pat and the Johns, and then headed off to the trailer park to get set up – turns out Tony didn’t have a spare for the car either – he had wheels, and he had tyres, but none together.  We put a wheel and a tyre in the boot, got the harnesses set up and also a borrowed helmet net (which was too far and too narrow to be usable when in the car, alas!), found out that the trip meter was stuck on Calibrate (and therefore not usable!), and also that I’d forgotten my digital watch, so I’d need to use my analogue one.  So, well prepared all round then!  Next to us was Paul Bird’s WRC focus, and the contrast was massive – not only in the car, but the team – there were (I think) 6 people working on the car at one point!  If only!

Compare and contrast, folks!

We set off for the pre-start holding area, and were just parking up when Tony realised the rally plates weren’t on the car.  So we went back to the trailer park and put them on, along with the compulsory RWD challenge stickers, which I placed to help cover up some of he car’s scars… then we set off, drove round town for a bit, and then into the start proper, outside the Town Hall.  Tony did some chat, and then off we went, filling up on the way and having a quick chat with an American tourist who was quite bemused by it all.

Filling up

The road section was about 25 miles, with an hour to do it, so no pressure and we got to the stage with time to spare, so we pulled over for a break a short way before, and found a Focus WRC parked up, which then needed a front tyre changed.

Look at the suspension travel!

I was going to check the pressures, but Tony didn’t have a gauge, so that was that!  We got ready and headed into the first stage.

Reading the notes on this was something I was worried about because Tony wants numbers with 6 fastest, and I’ve been used to them being 1 fastest, so all the numbers were reversed in meaning; I was worried I’d see a 1 corner and not be concerned about it, which would be BAD, so I’d highlighted them.  As it happens I needn’t have worried at all – after the first few bends it was fine.  We were told there were a couple of cars off early in the stage – one was hanging precariously on the inside of a hairpin, the other just parked by the side of the road.  But the main issue was grip, or rather the lack of it – the car was all over the place – so much so that I really though we’d go off – the front wasn’t gripping, the back wasn’t gripping, we were like a newborn deer on ice.  Although it was only a short stage (about 3 miles), it seemed to take a long time, but we got to the end OK, and off to the next stage start.  Fortunately there had been a delay, so we had about 10 minutes to wait.  I borrowed a tyre pressure gauge from someone and let some air out as they were more like 35 PSI all round aside from the left rear which was at 29.  Hopefully we’d have some more grip now!  I also got a chance to help out a crew who were doing their first event who asked about timing (as we’d been booked in and given a provisional start time for the stage which we’d clearly miss, he was worried about this, so I explained that it was OK, which he finally believed!) which was nice.  By now the queue was clearing, so in we went.

The BMW really does get off the line quickly compared to all the FWD cars I’ve been in, and that allied to the smooth 6 cylinder engine made for a fun start.  Almost straight away I could feel the car had more grip, and as we got into some 3 and 4 corners, the car seemed to turn in better and slide about a lot less.  This was GOOD.  Tony seemed much happier with the car, and was enjoying sliding it about all over the place but in a controlled manner – I’m sure it looked pretty spectacular from outside the car, as it seemed a number of times we were at about 45 degrees to the direction of travel.  When we went over big bumps at first I thought I’d pressed the horn button by accident, but in fact it was the rear tyres rubbing on the arches.  Overall the car seemed to be behaving itself pretty well, and the low ride height wasn’t an issue as the stages were smooth for the most part.  We’d definitely gone quicker and more importantly it had been a lot more fun in the car; Tony was happy at the end and felt it was much better like this.  I thought it would be nice to go a bit lower on the pressures but as we didn’t have a gauge handy or any way to pump them up if we’d gone too low, I thought better of it.  However, coming out of the control, Tony said we had a puncture.  I asked if he was sure, and he was.  We stopped by the Johns’ chase car, and were told all was well, so we carried on.  I’ve had this quite a few times, being convinced something on the car was broken when it was fine, I guess it’s just the way your mind works in these situations.
Stage 3 was Dyfi East, and went much like SS2 – overall not bad, with Tony getting used to the car, although there were still a few areas which needed work – tight hairpins still were very slow, and Tony still needed to change from his old FWD style of getting all the way round on the handbrake; easier said than done when an error will lead to an off down a steep bank, so he erred on the side of caution although I think this was one of the biggest differences in time between us and the other crews in front; on the fast bits we were going pretty well so I think the time lost was more about braking points and getting hairpins right than anything else.

On our way in again.

SS4 was Dyfi West, and again it went OK.  Over the last 4 stages I was surprised at the number of cars that were off – there seemed to be a LOT of them, both from driving errors and mechanical issues, but fortunately we’d not had anything major in either respect; the gearbox was sounding a bit noisy sometimes, and there was an odd knocking noise coming from somewhere, but it had been there most of the day and Tony said it had always been there, so nothing to worry about too much.  We headed off on the hour’s drive to service, which gave me a chance to release myself from the vice that was the seat I was in; by the time we got to service I was convinced I’d be crippled and as bad as I was in 2010, but once we got to service and I had a chance to wander about, I was OK after 5 minutes – a relief for me, for sure, but I spent as little time in the car as possible when booking into service; it probably looked like we’d had an argument!

Service consisted of… well, not a lot really.  The guys looking after the Johns had a look at the car while Tony and I went to get some hot food, and we got the tyre changed onto the rim by the Pirelli chap, and then we just had a chat – nice and relaxed when your car is working OK!

Service out, all ready to go again.

Booking out of service was slightly fraught as we were waiting and then I realised I’d thought we were out on 47 when we were out on 46, but thankfully we were right by the control with 15 seconds to go when I realised this.  What wasn’t so good was the next road section to Hafren – the times had been altered because of a change to the refuelling zone (now inside the service rather than outside), giving us 18 minutes to do 8 miles.  Which sounds easy enough, but the access road to Hafren was a long single-track one, and we met someone coming the other way which used up some time, and the road book wasn’t clear as there was one place which looked like the junction we should come off at but it wasn’t there.  Anyway, we made it with about 30 seconds to spare once we’d got ready to go in, so not the end of the world, but we had to drive a lot quicker than you’d expect given those numbers.

SS5 Hafren went well – I’m really gutted that the camera didn’t work, in fact; I’d not had time to change the SD card which was showing full (I should have checked it in service but forgot!), so we didn’t get any footage of it, but the camera iris setting is way too open anyway, so you don’t see much with it when it’s mounted back on the cage, alas.  Anyway, it went well for the most part – there were some bits which weren’t too great, with braking being a problem in places (not the car, just timing it right), and hairpins once more. There were some sections of 5 and 6 corners that we were really flying on; fast enough to make me worry about it, in fact, so probably as fast as I’ve been on gravel unless the “I’m not driving multiplier” had kicked in.  At the end of the stage Tony was happy with it, and so was I, so we headed off for the last forest stage of the day, a re-run of SS2, Gartheiniog, via a holding control where we swapped stories with some of the 205 crews.  By now the weather was looking to be on the turn, and indeed by the time we got to the stage it was getting grey and feeling like rain.  A couple of minutes in, it did just that; the rain came down and suddenly the grip dropped right off – the car was sliding much more than before, and running off line onto the loose gravel was a very bad idea as the car just lost all grip at that point, so I spent a fair bit of the stage reminding Tony to watch his line and taking more note of the cautions which littered the notes.  About 3/4 of the way through we were disappointed to see that John O’Gorman’s car had gone off – they were both out of the car and fine, but we later found out they’d rolled.  A bit more care was taken in a few places, and a couple of places we would definitely look like we were showing off as Tony got the back hung right out when we came out of some slower corners, and soon enough the end was in sight.  Now it was just the road sections and Woodyard to go.

Another hour’s road section and a long wait for a holding control on a farmyard (where I got told I was nuts for being a navigator by a woman there who then said ‘Well, drivers are worse, mind’. “I usually drive”.  ‘Oh, both feet in then.”, and then off to the woodyard for the last stage of the day.  Although it was only 1.85 miles long, it was 5 pages on notes; compare that with the 8.98 miles of Hafren with only 12 pages then you’ll see how busy it was in there.  There’s one section you do twice, and then head into the rest of the yard; most of it went OK (although the car was having a hard time getting grip in places, it made much lighter work of it than the 205 did last year), Tony got a bit over-exuberant on one corner (coincidentally right where we’d left the car the night before and it had been moved from), and we slid sideways into a log; fortunately just slowly so nothing bad happened, and the rest of the stage was a bit frenetic but passed without incident other than us laughing a lot at the end.

Logshine

Top stuff, and just the run down to the finish in a car park in Welshpool to go, which was fine aside from a spectator’s car in the woodyard holding us up for a few minutes – once that was done, we got to the car park, booked in and we’d finished!  Another good effort by Tony, with things clearly needing doing for next time, both in terms of the car and targets for driving, but all good, really.

We went back to the trailer park and as Tony was going to use the BMW to get the trailer wheel sorted I set off home – getting home in a much more suitable 3 hours now the roads were empty.

Next up could well be Swansea bay, but we’ll have to see…

There’s not been much to report in the last couple of weeks; I’ve been busy working for most of the time, and the spare time I have had has been spent working on other cars, but next weekend some progress should be made on the Skoda (plus I’ve been investigating the 1.4 engine option). However, a couple of weeks ago I was sent another picture by Chris (chrispons@talk21.com), and it’s my favourite picture I’ve seen of us in the car, I really love it, so I thought I’d post it here!

I’m no photographer, but I love everything about this picture – it’s incredibly well focussed (particularly as we were going pretty quick at the time), I love the view of the road, the position of the car, the trees, the people in the background, even! Anyway, gush over!

I’ve finally got round to doing the other stages we videoed from Rallye Sunseeker 2011 – unfortunately because of the gearbox mounting issue I didn’t realise the main (HD) camera battery was getting flat and it was too late to do anything about it at the second service, and the batteries I put in my second camera (which I put on the roof) died during SS8, so I only have some video of that (which I may upload anyway over the weekend). Anyway, enjoy SS1, SS3 and SS4.

Splendid.

One of the things that went to plan for a while on the Sunseeker was video – for the first time we had two cameras, so I have made a little video of SS2 (Ringwood South), so you can see us in action…

The main footage was on a GoPro Hero HD, while the crew footage was on my GoPro Hero Wide, if you’re interested!

A few people have emailed me recently mentioning the amount of work that goes into competing in a rally car, having been surprised at the amount of work that is needed to get the car ready and so on.  So I thought I’d cover the other side of the coin – what needs to be done after an event, in terms of work on the car.

Before that, a quick summary – after Rallye Sunseeker, the car was pretty much unscathed – we’d hit a few things here and there, but there was no ‘proper’ damage – everything that happened to the car was run-of-the-mill.  So the first thing to do (and this was done the day after the event) was to clean it – here’s how it came home:

Post-event muddy car - seems quite clean.

And the engine bay looked like this:

Muddy engine bay.

So – certainly doesn’t look too bad in the pictures (although I think they make it look a bit cleaner than it actually was), but it needs to be clean, as the car will probably be stood up for some time (possibly until September, if not longer).  Up on some ramps it went, and then it was time to jetwash the underneath – under the wheelarches, under the floor, round the suspension and brakes and so on.  This took two hours of solid work – it really was that bad, and local mud is pretty sticky stuff.  This left the road looking like this:

Muddy Road!

Which again may not come out too well in the photo, but after I’d moved the car, I used a spade to get as much as I could into a wheelbarrow, and it was over half a wheelbarrow full of mud!  It really was dirty; the car also got a ‘normal’ clean with hot water and a sponge too, as the top needs to be clean as well, and at this point it looked OK.  However, there was a lot more to do – the reason being is that the most expensive part on the car is also one of the most vulnerable in terms of corrosion, the suspension.  Those with long memories will know that I bought it as part of a job lot of parts, and it was wrecked when I got it; it cost £1350 to get it reconditioned, and it’s transformed the car in the process.  However, it can’t be left on the car; OK, it could do, but that would be a really stupid thing to do, as the mud and water would do it no good long-term, and I really need to avoid the expense aside from anything else.

This weekend’s job has been to get the suspension off and cleaned up, so the car was put up on axle stands all round, and then front struts and rear coilovers removed, which is a fairly quick job as all the bolts have been off recently so nothing is rusted in place, and as soon as they get pulled off the car, you realise why jetwashing isn’t enough; the wheels and the car body get in the way meaning that you never get it completely clean.  Here is one of the rears having been removed from the car and then having the spring removed:

Dirty shock!

Clearly filthy, and the mud would lead to lots of corrosion problems.  So, half an hour’s work on the rears left them looking much better:

Clean shock!

Once this was all done, everything could be checked properly (all seemed well), dried off and then sprayed with ACF-50 which is an anti-corrosion spray which I’ve heard good things about; typically used on motorbikes etc, I’m sure it will help keep everything looking good and working well.

It was much the same story with the fronts – they had a lot of grit and mud stuck between the springs and the strut bodies, so that was all cleaned out, and then the bottom of the struts was removed and the bushes checked; the oil that you put inside them when you assemble them (user-replaceable, as it were) looked to have done a fair bit of work, and it took quite a bit of work to get them all clean, but again once they were they looked good as new.  They are now stored safely out of the way, ready to go back on the car when needs be – there’s no need to put them back on the car when it’s not going to be used, I think.

One thing struck me – the amount of damage that is done by stones to parts of the car; everyone who has seen the on-board footage has commented on the noise as we go along, which is of course stones hitting the underside of the car.  And this was shown really clearly by the bottom of the one shock – it was brand new before this event, and looked a bit like this:

Shiny shock bottom

And after just a day’s use in the forests, this is what it looked like:

A bit of stone damage

So you can see just how much abuse the underside of the car gets – it really is a harsh environment!  However, the other bottom (which is much older) looks much the same, so I guess once the damage is done to a certain depth then that’s it, it’ll stay that way and not degrade too much more.

Overall, the straightforward post-event work means a weekend to clean the car up and then to give the suspension a once-over and clean it properly.  I’ve made a point of making lists of things that need fixing after events (as rose-coloured glasses can so often mean you forget what was wrong), and here’s the current one:

• Rattle under floor – towards the end of the day, something was hitting which shouldn’t have been, so this needs to be investigated.
• Gear lever sealing – the rubber seal round the gear lever expired and was leaking water (and mostly steam) when going over any puddles.
• Sumpguard sides attachment – these proved troublesome during the service when I fixed the gearbox mounting, so will need to be made quicker and easier (and not cross-threaded, now!)
• Drivers door handle/fitting – it became harder to get out of the car as the day went on – the mechanism is tired….
• Passengers door handle/fitting – much like mine!
• Extinguisher Foam – I made a temporary foam cover for the plumbed-in extinguisher to stop my helmet/HANS getting damaged when putting them into the helmet net; this needs to be done properly.
• Water Leak – the car was losing water towards the end of the day from the tank cap.
• Starter Terminal – this just needs a new connector fitted, but it’s a really important one and is on/off a lot so needs to be top quality.
• Squeaky front suspension – the right front squeaked by the end of the day; this may have been fixed having checked the whole load over now.
• Floor protection – the floor is getting damaged, so I need to make up some kevlar guards to protext it and give the car a longer lifespan – same goes for the sills.
• Sumpguard mountings – the lack of adjustment in them nearly led to us being late or even excluded when leaving service on the Sunseeker, so I have come up with a better mounting system for them, which should give adjustment but also good strength.
• Exhaust leak – the manifold appears to have cracked, and needs replacement, really.
• Clock adjustment switch – a minor point, but the switch to adjust the minutes on the clock on the dash has failed, and I’m sure Paul was sick of me asking him the time!
• Damage to wing edges and seams under rear arches – there’s quite a bit of stone damage to the flanges of the wheelarches, these need to be straightened, cleaned and then painted.
• Welded areas in inner wings and towing eye (paint/rustproof) – some damage here too, which needs to be cleaned, rustproofed and painted.
• Replace fuel pipes in engine bay – they were the same age as the tank connections which failed, so this is preventative.
• Paint bumpers – cosmetically the car is looking a bit shabby because of the bumpers having lost their paint, so they need to look much better; not a big point but it makes a real difference to the car’s appearance.
• Fix windscreen water leak – if it rains the passenger’s side fills up with water – I removed half a bucket from it before Rallye Sunseeker.
• Re-route fuel tank pipes properly – the fuel tank pipe routing isn’t ideal so I want to address this.
• Extinguisher Service – they were last serviced in August 09 so will need to be done again if we are to compete in Rally GB.
• Replace driver’s Seat – The seat expires in June, so will need replacing if we are to do Rally GB.
• Check rear wheel bearings – these have been checked and are OK!
• Replace joint in gear linkage – the gear change is getting a bit sloppy as the joint in the linkage is wearing, so this needs to be sorted to stop incorrect gear selection.
• Gearbox check/rebuild – the loss of the three bolts led to some issues with the transmission so the diff bearings will need replacing and re-shimming, and the rest of the box needs a check.
• Engine rebuild – the bottom end of the engine is very tired, so this will need rebuilding, possibly using the 1400 crank which Skoda homologated in 1999.

So, as you can see, there are a fair few things to do!  Obviously some are smaller than others, but they still mean a fair few evenings and weekends taken up with it all, and on top of that at the moment I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing in the future given the lack of a navigator for Rally GB and also having some problems with work (a long, regular contract which is about 35% of my work has ended),but I figure the best thing to do is to plan ahead and get as much as possible done so if the opportunity presents itself I will be able to take it.

After the ceremonial start of Friday night, today was the ‘real thing’, Rallye Sunseeker 2011. Being my local rally it’s something special to me, and even more so given that I couldn’t take part in 2010, and in 2009 we did about 4 miles of forest stages before the diff exploded leading to a DNF (and a big bill). I was doubly gutted in 2009 as the weather had been kind in the weeks before leading to stages that were in the best condition for a very long time, and although this week the weather had been wet, I was relieved to wake up at 6:30 to find it generally looking fine and bright, although it had rained in the night.  The car looked shiny and ready for a day of forest action!

The Skoda blinks in the morning light.

By 8:30 my ‘service’ car (i.e. my Focus estate) was packed with spares, wheels and tools and ready to go; Paul arrived and we went down to Canford Arena to drop the car off and so I could go get the rally car and he could get a couple of things he’d forgotten – another advantage of living locally to the event! I came back, filled the rally car with fuel and got some water to take with us, and then off to Canford to set up. Or in reality, get a tarpaulin out to service on and put four spare wheels out to hold it down! With no-one to service for us, there doesn’t seem much point in spending a lot of time setting up for what would hopefully be two relaxed 25-minute services during the day, and there’s no way to keep the EZ-up that I have under complete control if it gets windy (and it gets very windy at Canford Arena!).  Nice and simple.

Our state of the art service area.

Our start time was 10:12, and after checking tyre pressures and oil and water levels, we were pretty much ready to go, and soon enough the time came up.  No matter how many times I do rallies, the time before you actually get going is a nervy one for me – it’s got better since the first time, obviously, but I always get a bit nervy and triple-check things, but we soon set off to stage 1, Uddens, which is only a small distance away, and involves the typically heavy traffic of the Wimborne bypass (and fortunately a long enough road time).   Uddens is a good stage – short but I like it as it’s a nice start to the day with some square and 6 corners to give you a bit of time to get back into it, and then a tighter, slippy section which has led to problems before!  I decided to use my HANS device, and have found it very easy to get back into; once everything is set and you’re used to it, it seems odd not to have it on, in fact.  We got ready for the stage and set the two cameras running – a friend had lent us a GoPro Hero HD to try out as the main ‘looking forward’ camera, and I set my one looking across the crew, so we could make a more interesting video of one of the stages.  And then time to go in; the nerves had mostly disappeared and it was down to business.

And business involved me braking about 100% too early for the first corner!  Last time out I’d gone in really well, but it took a few corners to readjust to getting it near right (although still not good), although the speed in the corner itself seemed fine as the back of the car was starting to drift already and it felt good – the engine was running well and those first few corners went well; we’d been warned that the middle section was slippy and rough, although it didn’t seem too bad I didn’t go bananas over it just in case.  The final part of the stage is a few long straights with square corners between them so it was a chance to get a bit of speed up (into top gear towards the end, in fact), and it went OK – not great, but not badly.  The times came up and we saw we’d taken 20 seconds out of the Skoda, but lost a second to the mini – easily done with such poor braking for most of the stage, so it felt like there would be a good battle on for the day.  Off with the helmets and HANS (not easy in my car, but doable with a bit of stretching), and off on the road section.

On the road Paul said he’d failed utterly; I was worried he’d forgotten the road book, but in fact he’d forgotten his sea-sickness pills, so we hatched a plan for him to go get some in the store which is opposite the next stage arrival; we had a couple of minutes spare but he had no luck there.  Stage 2 is Ringwood South, and I was nervous about it – it was about a mile into it in 2009 when the diff had let go, but I tried to put this out of my mind, and concentrated instead on getting braking distances right.  Off we went soon enough, and it went better.  The problem with the diff came back to me as it’s in a very memorable part of the stage, where there are posts on the right side of the road (all of which are marked in reflective yellow), and then a 90 right where the car died.  I swear I could hear some noise starting as we went into that section, but the car powered out of the right-hander perfectly and down the long straight and it was all forgotten; the task of beating the others in the class became the objective, so I tried hard to brake later for each corner and had it much better as the stage went on – tight corners were being taken in a much more capable manner than before with better lines and use of the handbrake, and it was going well until… we saw the mini broken down on the left-side of the stage towards the end.  Paul said it was a disappointment and I agreed – we were looking forward to a good battle all day and it looked like that was over; we later found out it was a double puncture and given the lack of ground clearance on the mini and the place they’d stopped that sounded about right.

A 100-yard section on the road (where we have to take our helmets off, making the timing pretty tight) led to Stage 3 – Ringwood North – which is the biggest of the event, and one to get your teeth into; it’s 10.6 miles long and I had set the target of catching the Skoda during the stage, and finally catching a non-retiring car during a stage.  While it is a long stage, much of it is the same each year, so there are sections that you remember; I wasn’t ready for some bits which dragged us off the road, and I made a mess of the braking from high speed, but most of it went well, until I span leading into a hairpin and lost about 10 seconds recovering from it.  I cursed myself and carried on, trying not to over-do it and crash as a result, and the rest of the stage went pretty well; there were a few moments (and I can always tell when they’ve been bigger than usual because I can see Paul reach for the door handle to steady himself) but overall it was good; we caught sight of the Skoda right at the end, and had taken 50 seconds out of them on the stage, so it would have been really close if it wasn’t for the spin.  Still a good performance and the times showed we were building up a lead which we may need – one thing I’ve learnt in rallying is that it’s not over until the finish line!

Stage 3 pic, by chrispons@talk21.com

Stage 4 is the new Somerley stage, and one I was glad to reach because Tammie was there with her son Sennen, and although I wouldn’t see them, I was pleased they would be there to see us.  The layout was all new, with one interesting bit where you go over a new man-made bridge;  the spectator section had a water splash, but it seemed to me from the car that the spectators were a LONG way back (and video I have seen since confirms this), which seems a pity; I know safety is important and all that, but this seemed to be going too far (literally!).  The water splash looked good on the video, though.  The rest of the stage was a mix of tight sections (and I span on a 6R 6L combination, sticking the front of the car in a hedge, although the recovery looks much quicker on the video than I remember it being), and some of it was incredibly slippy, with lots of wheelspin even in 3rd and not too much control; the forest road sections were better and the end section was just rough, muddy carnage; we both commented that the mini probably wouldn’t have been that happy through there anyway.  Again another fair time against the other Skoda and good fun.

At the time card collection I noticed the smell of gearbox oil, but thought nothing of it; we went back to Canford on the road section and at one point going round a roundabout heard a couple of loud taps on the bottom of the car, sounding like a stone or bolt hitting it.  I then noticed that the gear lever seemed to be loose as when you went onto and off the power it was moving, but after a bit of thinking thought it was more likely to be the gearbox mounting.  As we waited to get into service at Canford I took a look and my diagnosis looked to be correct; the engine could move quite freely as the new bottom mount was now disconnected from the engine, and gearbox oil was on the sumpguard as well.  Not good.

We booked in and set off to our service area (typically at the far end, losing us time), and I sent Paul off to see Gary Hayter and see if he had any M8 bolts that were at least 100mm long.  The sumpguard was off soon enough, and Paul back with some bolts.  My very worst fear was not confirmed (I had thought the casing may have broken), and it looked as if just replacing the bolts would do the trick; two from Gary’s spares box and one from the guys in car 77 (Peugeot 205), which were perfect lengths, and soon bolted back in place.  Oil was topped up with half a litre, and then it took forever (OK, 10 minutes) to get the sumpguard back on- the front of the car had clearly moved a bit, and only three of the four mounts would go in.  I was getting really frustrated as it wouldn’t go in and in addition my hands and shoulders were tired from holding it all up and I just couldn’t grip the tools.  Paul helped out by shoving the sumpguard over with his foot and we got it all back in place, put the tools away and off we went to check in, with me stinking of EP90 and covered in mud.  We made it OK, though, thankfully.

Off out now to Wareham and a long road section finished with me convinced there was no oil in the gearbox and that it was getting louder; where the bolts had been missing the casing had clearly flexed and let some oil out but we didn’t have time to check it and I didn’t think about it until it was too late; we got to the stage arrival and had some food at last, and then into the stage, run in the reverse direction from previous years.  I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again – the difference that ‘proper’ suspension makes to a rally car is amazing.  Usually Wareham has been a horrible case of attrition with lots of bouncing about and feeling completely out of control, but the Proflex seemed to transform the car; there were places where it was very difficult to drive, but no bottoming out, and much more control than before.  The time at the end of the stage showed we had beaten not only the Skoda (by 17 seconds), but also a Fiat Stilo and Sierra 4×4, which was nice!

Stage 6 was the long Wareham stage, and again the better suspension made it a far more pleasant experience than before – still slippy but took another 25 seconds out of the Becketts, which was good.  It was  a pity to see Rod Bennett’s Stilo on the finish line; it was apparently stuck in two gears at once, on what seems to be a jinxed stage for him.  Stage 7 was the last of the Wareham area stages, Bere Heath, which was pretty much as before although accessed a different way.  This went OK too, with our time not a million miles off of the remaining Fiat and the XR4X4, despite there being a LOT of water about (one cameraman was placed perfectly to get some good shots), and seeing us another 20 seconds to the good.

On the way back we had plenty of time so decided to stop at a garage to check the gearbox oil and maybe buy some if there was any; I found they didn’t have any but thought I’d check it anyway.  The car wasn’t in a queue for fuel so Paul stood behind a truck using a pump to save our place, and while I checked the level (and found it was OK), another car pulled up, so it was worth doing.  However, the woman in the car wasn’t happy about it, saying that you “couldn’t do that, if you’ve not got the car there” – she was really rude and abusive to Paul, but we put the fuel in anyway.  It was all of 10 litres and took all of a minute, and I really don’t know what her problem was.  Her husband looked like he’d had a lifetime of that sort of stuff though, poor chap!

Off we went to service and this time it was a much more pleasant experience; a bit of food while waiting in the holding control, and service consisting of just checking levels (all good aside from water which was a bit down so I topped it up), tyre pressures and putting the lamps on; we didn’t think we’d need them given the bright weather but I thought it may be useful in the last long stage both for dark forest sections and also in case we got close to the other Skoda!

Ready for another four stages, with any luck

Out again for another loop, with the first stage (now White Sheet) being a reversal of the first stage of the day; I like the stage this way round as well, and there was only one thing to watch which I took care over, and that was a jump over a bridge; there are ditches either side of the road and I really didn’t fancy getting it wrong so just backed off a bit for that.

SS8 - Pic by chrispons@talk21.com

It went OK, but we only extended the lead by 9 seconds this time round and were the same amount adrift of the Sierra so clearly I needed to push on a bit more.

Next was a re-run of Somerley (to give the spectators a quicker re-run rather than waiting while we did two other stages, sensibly enough), and it was ROUGH.

Ready for Somerley 2

Some of it was OK, but there were places where it had really cut up again; I made fewer mistakes, but actually went slower than in the morning, as I was careful over the rough sections which looked more like the moon than anything else – the ruts were massive as it was just loose dirt, and the lines were difficult to see in places as well.  However, we took 50 seconds out of the Becketts as they had hit a bale, apparently, and we could see them right at the finish, but it still wasn’t to be!

The penultimate stage was the re-run of Ringwood South, and although it went better from my point of view, it was still slower; the stage had cut up a bit, I guess, as there weren’t any major issues for me (although the now-missing bales in places were a surprise), and we came away with another 20 seconds to play with.

Stage 10 pic by eirah@aol.com

Finally, it was a re-run of Ringwood North, the longest stage of the rally, and I hoped there wouldn’t be a sting in the tail;  I really wanted to catch the Skoda in the stage, and was determined not to make the same mistakes again as earlier on.  It went well throughout, although again the stage time is actually slower than before – and this really comes down to how the stage has worn – there was one hairpin where I was amazed we even got through as it had cut up an immense amount and the car was bashing along on the sumpguard as we went round it, with both of us amazed at a) the state of the stage and b) the car making it through.  Once more we just caught sight of the Becketts right at the end, so it wasn’t to be, but it was still another 36 seconds to the good.  We’d done the stages, but still had to get back to Bournemouth Pier, and given what happened on Rally GB last year, anything could happen.

There was a wait at Kings’ Park while the cars were ‘jetwashed’ (I say this because they were little cleaner after than before!), and we had a chat with the other crews – there were certainly a LOT of cars out (it later turned out that only 13 had finished, with 15 retirements) and a few stories to tell.

Victor and Vanquished. This year, anyway.

Soon enough, it was off to the seafront; we got going OK having watched a rather heated discussion between a parent and child of a family who were living in said car park, and then I noticed my headlights wouldn’t work; sidelights were OK but no headlights.  Never mind, not the end of the world, but something else on the list of things to fix.  We got to the final control with seconds to spare, and got our timecards sorted – now we had officially finished, and won our class.  Paul’s wife Clair was there with their son, Miles (who is 7 months old), and a few photos were taken with him on and in the car (and wearing a similar expression to his dad!), and slowly the queue moved up.  An escort a couple of cars in front needed to be pushed, which I found amusing until I went to start the Skoda and …. nothing!

The car bump-started easily enough once Paul and a couple of bystanders gave us a push, but I didn’t fancy leaving it running that long, so I checked the fuse box and relays and so on, and then I remembered that there’s an oddity about the Skoda’s wiring that uses the starter solenoid as a sort of earth for some functions, and if it’s disconnected, some things won’t work (other than the starter!).  I opened the bonnet and found that was the problem, and it started up again.  Splendid.

A short wait, and then an interview with Robin Bradford while the Mayor of Bournemouth gave us our plates from Poole Pottery, photos were taken and the enthusiastic crowd greeted us – it was really good to have people still there and clapping as we left, last car to finish, but not in last place!  Once again, a great day for me, and Paul was as excellent as ever; composed and calm (even during the gearbox incident), and unflappable on the stages.

The car needs a fair few things doing to it now, but that can wait for a week or two – for now it’s time for a break as my week “off” has been anything but!

This evening was the ceremonial start for Rallye Sunseeker 2011, which has replaced the traditional Friday night stages in Bournemouth Gardens since last year; obviously I didn’t get to it last year as I was out of action, but this year was my first experience of it. On the face of it, it’s a chance for the public to get close to rally cars that will be competing tomorrow, and also for sponsors to be seen by a wider section of the public – there are lots of people who are interested but won’t be able to spend the day in a forest watching cars, and this was evident tonight.

We arrived a bit before our due time and queued up, with Gary Hayter appearing just behind us; his terratrip had broken so it was handy for us to be able to tell him which iPhone app would do the trick instead! We had a chat with the others in our class – the Becketts in the Skoda Favorit and Richard and Andrew in the 1275GT Mini, and had a good laugh. The mood down at the Quay reminded me of the queue on the barrage for Rally GB’s saturday evening stage – everyone was chatty and there was an air of excitement. The crowds were HUGE – I really wasn’t expecting anywhere near as many people to be down there; when we arrived it was difficult to move in some parts of the quay, and this lasted the entire time; there seemed to be a fair wait and it did look as if we would be waiting around a lot longer than our original due time, but once the cars got moving it went smoothly; even though we were last but one over the ramp (we would have been last but it looked like car 70’s driver had gone AWOL and they appeared when there was no chance of them overtaking us!), the crowds were still solid – driving up to the start itself the crowds were very deep, with people asking for autographs and saying hello, and the commentator keeping things moving with each car taking about 30 seconds while the mayor held a flag over the windscreen in true ceremonial style – he was very chatty and enthusiastic which was much appreciated by us as normally by the end people have had enough!

We drove off through even more excited crowds, and back home – quite a different experience from doing the two seafront stages but still a good PR exercise, I’m sure. Tomorrow will be completely different, however, and it’s time to see how well we can go; I have heard reports that some of the stages are really rough this year, with some tricky sections as well, so it will certainly not be easy for anyone!

Today sees a couple of important things for tomorrow’s Rallye Sunseeker 2011 – having got documentation out of the way last night, scrutineering needs to be done, and then there is the ceremonial start at Poole Quay this evening.

I woke up reasonably early and got all the stickers on the car – this was not to my usual high standards, and I’m blaming thin vinyl for my poor efforts.  Next up was getting some tyres changed, and the chaps at Kinson Tyres were as obliging and efficient as ever, so after that it was time for noise test at Canford Arena, which was passed easily enough, but I noticed that the throttle was sticking – it was difficult to get a precise opening, which is really crucial when trying to get the engine at 4500rpm, and obviously will be when driving the car in anger as some precision is needed in mid-corner to avoid either going hideously slow or off the road!

Scrutineering was down at Oops! near Poole, and I followed Craig Breen’s fiesta most of the way down there until he went in completely the opposite direction, so either he was lost or he wasn’t going there anyway; either way I got there in plenty of time and got the car scrutineered, which went OK apart from the electrical cutoff T-handle breaking when I tested it (I’d removed it all last night and oiled the cable, checked it all worked fine and again this morning, and then it breaks THEN.  Typical!), which I’ve now replaced.

So, technically all ready to start, but still a few things to do – sort out the idle speed (which had risen due to the throttle stop screw working loose), sort the throttle pedal/cable, and also the intercom extension which got broken in Rally GB – handily the UK importer of the connectors is in Poole, so that was easy enough – thanks to Claire at Pambry Electronics for her help today, much appreciated.

I got back, got the idle speed sorted, and found that both throttle pedal and cable were to blame, so lubrication seems to have helped there a great deal, and the intercom was fixed soon enough.  Time for lunch and CRACK!  I’ve broken a tooth.  Which isn’t ideal, but at the moment it doesn’t hurt too much, and handily I have the dentist this afternoon anyway (rated right up there with scrutineering and MOTs for me in terms of dislike), so hopefully he can patch it up.

Just about ready to go...

This evening’s start is at Poole Quay, and we are due at 18:54 and will be out of there by 20:06; hopefully the weather will hold up as it was nice earlier but is looking increasingly grey; I don’t fancy standing about in the rain for an hour, but apparently tomorrow is looking good.  We start at a rather relaxed 10:12am so should have a nice easy morning setting up at Canford Arena (well, what there is to set up, anyway!) and hopefully a smooth and rewarding day on the stages.