Skoda Rally Blog

I wrote my last entry straight after coming back from NAA Stages, and it wouldn’t take an expert to tell that I was a bit crestfallen. Having thought about it, I wouldn’t have minded being slow. And I wouldn’t have minded being crap/dangerous. But managing to combine the two is what really gutted me. I was never thinking I would be good, but I did think I’d be OK. As I may have mentioned, I used to drive a bit on gravel when we used to go out late at night in old Escorts, and I was OK. Not great, but I learnt how to control the car, and remember doing 80 down forest tracks in my Mk1, without any major moments. But I really was depressed about the whole situation. Tarmac rallying is a bit of fun for me – the forests are “real” rallying for me – the stuff that originally turned me on to it. I know now that tarmac is a lot more fun that I thought it would be, and the right events (Fat Albert and Caerwent) can offer a really good time. But I want to do another forest event. And I went to see Steve Colville during the week, and he’s persuaded me to enter the Temperst Rally on the 6th November. This is a BIG event – it’s part of the British Rally Championship (albeit we’ll be doing a ‘cut down’ version), and is hardcore. Unlike us! But I’ve sent (and e-mailed) my entry, so we could be “in”. Possibly – I’ve not heard back from the Entries Secretary, but they’re doing the seeding today, so I guess I’ll find out soon enough if we’re in or not. In the meantime, some mods are needed for the car:

Spotlamps – some of the stages will be in the dark!
Maplight – for Kev to see where we’re going
Tyres – Fortunately Gary Hayter of Ebblake Tyres has some good gravel tyres for us. That should help!

At certain points in everyone’s life, there are disappointments. Be they moments where you realise that someone you’re in love with is sleeping with the postman, that you’re not going to walk on the moon or be a film star, or whatever. No matter how ludicrous the idea, it can come as a shock.

Yesterday saw us entering Newton Abbott Audi stages – our first forest event. It was only short – 25 stage miles and 17 road miles – far less than the 100 mile drive to get there. Due to the reverse seeding, we were second car on the road, following a Skoda Felicia (which was a late entry – otherwise it would have been behind us), and were due at 10:01. The stages looked pretty smooth, but it was raining heavily – a really grey, horrible chilly day, with vans getting stuck on the grass in the “service area” and all sorts of amusing shenanigans. Still, if you don’t bring a van, it can’t get stuck, can it?

It was scary. Very scary. And that was before the stage had started. And then it did start. Up a hill, and round the first bend. The first impression I got was that I had no grip or control whatsoever. I’ve driven on gravel a fair bit (mainly when I was younger, being silly), and I certainly wouldn’t say I was an expert, but I have some skill at controlling a car on such a surface. Or at least I thought so. However, the slow, snaking evidence of this stage would clearly indicate that either I lost whatever skill I did have, or I was delusional. I’m sure it looked pathetic from the outside, but it was terrifyingly poor from the inside. The car would lurch about all over the place, even in a straight line. Corners were hard work, and getting the power on to pull the car round the corner didn’t always seem to work – the car would dig in or slide and I’d have no idea what was going to happen next at any point. About three-quarters through the stage we got caught by two following cars (together), and I moved over to let them by, and found it difficult to get back onto the line. We pootled to the end of the stage, and registered and embarrassingly slow time.

Stage 2 was stage one run in reverse. Tried to do better, but about 1/3 of the way through re-entered the forest with a 45 left-hander. No grip at all. The back went, so I tried to correct it, and the car slewed side to side several times. And then just sideways, just like you see on the TV from the in-car. The car bumped up a couple of times as it hit things, and I thought it was going to get messy as we were now bumping into where there were cut-off tree-stumps. I saw one come perilously close as we drew to a stop, and the car angled up as it hit whatever it did. For a moment I thought we were going to go over, but we just settled back down onto all four wheels. I started it up again, but we were stuck fast. Kev seemed surprised when I told him he’d have to get out and push, but he did it and managed to almost lift the car out of the ditch on his own (with help from the engine, but you know what I mean). He dived back in, and we got going again, albeit very slowly. The rest of the stage was a panicked blur, although the car seemed fine. Unlike the contents.

Stages 3 & 4 were short one-mile sprints through a new spectator area, which was less treacherous than the other stages, but still slippy. But my confidence in my driving ability had totally gone by this point, and I really wasn’t looking forward to it. And having lots of people there probably didn’t help much either. We set slow times on both passes, and headed off for ‘service’, which involved some sandwiches – the car needed little doing to it, apart from a bit less pressure in the tyres and some fuel.

Stages 5 & 6 were back where 1 & 2 had been, with some alterations; the first bit went reasonably well but slowly, but the new section featured a narrow track with a small edge and then a very steep drop-off with trees growing on it. It looked like one error would cause a real problem (involving testing out the strength of the rollcage and an ambulance), and when the car slipped sideways at one point I really felt like I’d had enough.

The waiting area looked like one of the forests on endor, and was boggy enough to lose a foot in. Getting away from the like for SS6 was hard work as the mud was very deep, and the car just slewed sideways. Things got a bit better on this stage, but the car was still slipping all over the place, and there was a huge bump near the big drop-off. We were just limping about rather than driving at any kind of speed, and I’m sure most people’s grans could drive faster and better.

SS7 and 8 were back where 3 & 4 had been, but with some extra length added (where the waiting area had been before), and were run in reverse to 3 & 4 which was good, as the nasty log area which had been at the end was out the way early. There were some good sections where the spectators were, and I managed to get out of jail on one slippy corner by really nailing the throttle to pull the car round. Second time round we had to get out of the way for a Sierra Cosworth, but still made up some time on the first run, so it wasn’t too bad.

SS9 was back to bellever, and finally I managed to get a hairpin right and use the handbrake, although I’m sure it felt better than it looked. And then it was all over. Just a trundle back through the stage once everyone had finished, and then off to the pub (where someone nicked my wallet, it would seem), and then the 100 mile journey home. As ever, the Favorit performed perfectly throughout the day, not missing a beat despite being driven by an incompetent.

As I said at the beginning, there are milestones in people’s lives when they realise that the course they thought it might take isn’t what will actually happen, or that their abilities fall far short of what is required. I never had any illusions of coming into rallying to do well, I just thought I’d have a go and enjoy myself. And forest events more so – yesterday was supposed to be the realisation of years of wanting to do such an event. But it just showed clearly that I don’t have the natural ability to control a car in such circumstances, or the nerves of steel needed to learn at anything other than a glacial pace. Anyone who can control a car on gravel has my total respect. It’s certainly something that I know I’ll never be able to do to any degree of competence.

Tomorrow, things get even more serious. Up until now the rallies we’ve been doing have all been Single-Venue (SV) events. So basically they’ve been in closed-off areas, be they airfields or training areas or whatever. But tomorrow is the first forest event, and that means two things. First up we’re on gravel, through forest roads! Which is (for me) what rallying is all about – just like the big boys… That also means that we don’t have laps, which is a good thing (especially as it’s reverse seeding, so we’ll be going at the front, possibly even first), but it also means we don’t get maps like we have before, and have ‘proper’ maps, and have to actually navigate. We also have to get from stage to stage – there are 25 miles of stages, and 17 miles of road. And that could get very interesting. I hope everything is going to be OK. I don’t see that it shouldn’t be, really, as we’ll just trundle through the stages like we always do. But it’s a whole new league.

On the car front, I’ve put two new front wheel bearings on, which has got rid of a nasty noise that was coming from the front, and finally got round to fitting the new strut-tops at the same time (as everything was already apart), and now there’s no “click” from the front end, as the strut-top itself wasn’t cracked, but the plastic rim at the top was, leading to the strut moving about under ‘duress’ (i.e. taking off!) – the car is probably in as good shape as it has been since I’ve owned it.

Cue hideous mechanical failure…..

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!

…. ‘cos the next event is at Caerwent on Sunday. I’ve just had the finals through the post, and to my horror I’ve found that we’re seeded 91st out of 101! I’m not sure whether this number has been arrived at by confidence in our abilities from our previous results, the Welsh “sense of humour” or the random throwing of runes. Whatever it’s down to, I’m scared! Some of the stages are 13 miles long, so with 30 second start intervals and with a 2 litre 16v Astra and a few more 2-litre cars behind us, I’m thinking we’ll be in the way. Oh dear.

Anyway, Caerwent is infamous for attrition – it’s said that 2/3rds of the entrants won’t finish because if you make a mistake you hit an 11″ concrete kerb. Which is GAME OVER. So I’m hoping that the attrition will help us out. Or something…..

On the car front, the cracked strut-tops which needed replacing were a surprise when I went to purchase them from the local Skoda garage. Not only were they in stock(!), they cost ?11.50 for the pair! Bargain! Unfortunately I need to fit them, and I can’t get to the garage as the dead Focus in in the way. And it’s raining today so that won’t be getting done. Poo.

Otherwise there’s little to do, really. Just take up some eclectic religion which will provide safety for its followers. And maybe 25 bhp…..

Arse! Why did I start this? Answers on a postcard to “You utter dick competition” at the usual address……

Today I am not a happy bunny. Anyone who’s unfortunate enough to know me personally would probably say I’m a bit of a miserable git. However, today I have a good reason, as my ‘lovely’ Focus engine has expired. So I had to drive the Skoda to work today. At a school. Which meant lots of schoolboys pointing at the car and stuff, which was amusing, but I could see that some of them thought it wasn’t the real thing! Ha ha ha, how amusing. Anyway, I’ll not have to do that again, as I’ve bought something to use temporarily (A volvo 440 of all things). But it means limited funds, so maybe the fuel injection will have to go on hold for a while. I’ve not even ordered the new strut-tops yet, which I really do need! And a new oil filler cap, which got lost the rally before last and has been using a flexi-cap which isn’t much good. But there’s little else to report apart from small boys staring open-jawed and pointing at the cars and getting their mates to look….

Ho ho ho.

…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!)

… well, the new gearbox is in, and it works – the first time I’ve had a box in the car with all 5 synchros working properly. However, it wasn’t that straightforward. First up, the end mounting had to be changed to my new “uprated” one. Which meant the end casing of the gearbox had to come off (10 bolts), and when putting the new one on, one bolt felt a bit dodgy…. and then broke off flush with the casing it screwed into. Off with the end casing, and then 10 minutes with the hammer and centre punch eventually persuaded the bolt out enough to get a pair of pliers on it. Next up, the gearchange linkage was seized on, which eventually was rectified by butchering it with an angle grinder. Then the speedo cable drive wouldn’t come out, which took much hammering to remove it, and finally there was an extra dowel fitted to the gearbox….. which we didn’t notice until it was in the engine bay and engaged onto the block. Out again, and after much swearing the centre punch came through again to remove the offending dowel. Ended up being out there until midnight and giving up, and finishing it yesterday morning. It’s all good now, so that’s a plus, and the original clutch is back in there, and hopefully will keep working unlike the new one which started slipping after just 6 stages. Very very poor!

I’ve also moved the intercom so it’s on the dash as it was a contortion act to turn the volume control up. It looks a bit good, like. A few hours’ work on Saturday morning and we’ll be ‘ready’ for Longcross. I think…..

Well, some progress has been made on the engine front.

Firstly, I’ve found a company in the Czech Republic who do tuning on the Skoda engine, and can do all-in packages, at what seems like a good price. But I’d rather build the engine myself, so I’m looking for getting some choice bits; they do long-stroke cranks at a decent price (?150), which will knock the capacity up to just under 1400cc which is ideal for the rally car – keeping it in the lowest class and yet adding some power. They also say that the head can take 37 and 31 mm valves, which is handy, as the originals are 34 and 30. So I’ll see if I can get that done locally.

Anyway, in the meantime my bits I got from the German company on eBay have arrived – the crank (standard) –

This is a bargain – they’re ?175 here, but this and the liners below cost ?80 including postage. This might not get used though if I go for the long-stroke crank, but anyway, it’s a bargain. Next up was a set of liners and pistons:

Now these were bargains too – a set of pistons and liners is ?175. But here’s the punchline – that’s without rings or gudgeon pins. And I wasn’t expecting to get them, but what turned up? You got it – a set of rings and 4 new gudgeon pins. Which would have cost me ?50 for the rings, and I don’t know how much for the pins. Splendid. So, I got about ?400 worth of stuff for ?80. Ah, good old eBay. Pure luck – no parts have been on there since. And believe me, I’ve checked….

And the other thing is that I have got my MegaSquirt (ECU) kit, and got a bit carried away; I had no intention of building it yet as I haven’t even started on the manifold and didn’t see the point. But a long evening and early morning later, and it’s built, and works like a dream – connects to the laptop, is programmable, and so on. If only the rest of the installation was going to be that easy……

Well, due to a sudden influx of finances, I’m in a position to do some more to the car, and really it’s only speed that it needs. Not lots of it, ‘cos I still want the car to be reliable and capable of being driven to the events. But anyway, here’s the plan:-

Throttle body injection. This will be the GPz1100 throttle bodies I’ve already mentioned, tied to a home-made manifold and injection system from a DIY system I’ve found on the ‘net. The parts for the ECU and test gear are on their way as I type, and the main problem is making the manifold. But I have a spare head to work with which will make things a lot easier to fabricate. Should make tuning a lot easier when the next phase comes along….

Big valve head. I’ve got to look carefully into this; a lot of people talk crap about this that and the other, but I think that the Skoda will need a bigger valve head to make more power. Again, not a huge amount in absolute terms, but if we can get around 110bhp out of it then it should be good. And as I’ve heard tale of over 140 from the same engine, it should be doable.

Bottom end. Had a bit of a find on eBay – a brand new crank and a brand new set of pistons with new liners, all for ?66 including delivery from Germany. Bargain – that’s about ?400 worth normally. So I’ll need a block to get building into. I’m only planning on fitting this if the other bottom end expires as it shouldn’t owe me too much money.

So that’s it really. There are other little things that need doing, such as a decent intercom instead of the utterly tragic OMP one that’s currently fitted and is worse quality than the ?5 transistor radio I had when I was a small boy. I mean it – we’re talking LOW quality here, which is no joke for something that cost ?70. And a few other little bits to make things sweeter.

As far as events are concerned, we’re definitely in the Spotted Dick and Custard stages on the 5th September, and hopefully should get an entry for Caerwent on the 26th – regs should be with me tomorrow. That should be good fun, if a little tiring. Power steering, anyone?