Lots of events

I know its been a while, but doing an event every weekend means, little time to do updates. However here is a bumper report.

Weekend 1 – The Carpetbagger

Billed as one of the toughest, longest and best road rallies in Britain I was keen to return to the Devon lanes for another go at the challenge of the ‘Bagger’. Kevin Ablitt was signed up for duties on the maps, and the weeks for before the event were spent getting both my rally car (Enduro/Stage Spec Rover 214) and Suze’s Enduro Spec Micra ready for the event. Suze would also be out on the event driving with Andy Elcomb on the maps.
We got to the start fine, and through noise and scrutineering fine, even if the scrutineer asked lots of questions about the intercom in the car. We had no headsets so couldn’t see the issue. Taking of seeing, this would going to be an issue as due to a lack of time, the spotlights weren’t working very well so we opted to run without them and just use the headlights, not such a good start…..
On to the start, after consuming an excellent plate of Ham Egg and Chips there was the usual waiting around and rally banter. The event got started for us around 11.30pm. The first few sections went well and we were getting settled in well, although we did book in early at one control. But just after IRTC 6 it went downhill or more like downfield. We took the option to go for the open gate and field rather than trying to make the downhill open K left, which we approached with a bit too much speed…. Luckily no damage done, but we got stuck getting out of the field. A quick call to a local recovery crew who had just recovered someone else from the same spot and we were away again. But we had lost a shed load of time, this mean cutting and lots of time penalties. The rest of the night was uneventful apart from a puncture costing us more time, and more cutting. Finally the last third it seemed to come together with Kevin feeling better (Mal De Nav had set in early on in the event) and I was getting a better feel from the snow tyres we were using, we managed to set a quite few recent times. Then to the finish, breakfast and results. We were amazed at the number of retirements (34 out of 60 crews), so were pleased with a 21st overall bettering my other result of 36th overall on the Bagger. Suze and Andy had a very good night, coming in 18th overall. I must have prepped that Micra too well……

Weekend 2 – CMC 12 Car

A quick check over the car and then less than a week later it was on to a Chelmsford MC 12 car. Suze was on the maps tonight, and a local start / finish venue meant it should be a good night for us. The event proved tricky all night long with a lot of route very flooded and to add to that, most of that water was solid…. Solid ice. This time the snow tyres worked and apart from a few lary sideways moments, we got round fail free and just dropping three mins. We knew it should have been a good result, but the usual waiting around at the finish seemed to take for ever… But as they read through the results it was all in our favour. We WON ! This was Suze’s first 12 car victory on the maps and only my second behind the wheel.

Weekend 3 – Goodwood Stages

A quick wash and check over again for the Rover rally car, and it was off to Goodwood. I met Suze at work on the Friday and we drove down to stay nearby to for once, to avoid the silly o’clock start stage rallying usually involves. Note we were once again the only crew to not be trailering to and from a stage event, as we the only ones left…. ????
After a still for a Saturday early start we headed for Goodwood and got set-up, it was great to use the pit-stalls to service under. It meant no worries about getting wet, although it was very cold and raining a bit. Scrutineering and noise was passed, with the noise crew wanting more noise…. so I put the radio on !
On to the first stage, having never driven around Goodwood, on cold slicks the nerves set in for both of us and none of this was helped by me spinning on the first corner of the event !!!! We were very lucky as on the outside of Madgewick there is a strip of tarmac which stopped us going backwards into the tyre wall at a very high speed. This certainly got the pulse rate up and the rest of the stage was spent learning where there was grip and wasn’t grip ! The next few stages were ok, but still very slippery as the rain stayed with us. A few delays caused by others falling off meant that stage 4 was cancelled, but the extra time and lunch allowed us to catch up with friends and competitors. As this was a free event to spectate there were lots of people watching us. Luckily over lunch the sun came out and dried most of the track. This gave us back the confidence to push on in the afternoon, and it was commented that my driving looked neat on the odd occasion ! Then it was down to the last two stages which at 2.4 miles were short and sweet. We had been battling in class with a Ford Ka (challenge spec) so lighter and quicker than us in theory. We knew we couldn’t take the class win as the ex. Works Micra Kit Car was miles in front of us even after his brillo pads fell out of his exhaust……
We checked the results before the last two stages we were two seconds behind the Ka, keen to get a ahead of them and not a lot of time or mileage to do this we set ourselves the challenge. A bit of thinking on my part, a LOT of encouragement on Suze’s part and removing every bit of extra stuff that we didn’t need in the car and we did it. In 4.8 miles (both stages) we took 16 seconds out of the Ka and set times quicker than a Porche 911, not bad for an essentially standard Rover 214 which has now done 113k miles ! We were both very pleased to have a) taken 2nd in class and b) taken soo much time out of the Ka. I just wish I wish I had got into the ‘Zone’ sooner!

Weekend 4 – B19 Car Trial

Firstly I still can’t get used to calling them just car trial’s, PCT’s make lot more sense to my little brain !
So on to the fourth event in as many weekends. Prep for this included checking over the Micra, and fitting non M&S tyres, in fact the one’s on the front were given to us by Tony Michael from a scrap Civic he had. So thanks to Tony for those J
The snow in the lead up to the event didn’t really make me think about the trial until we hit Kent, where as soon as we crossed the Thames we could still see snow. We got to Chapman’s hill fields and there was a fine covering of snow. However this snow soon melted and of course this made the field very very wet or should I say very very MUDDY. The whole day was spent struggling to event get to the start of some of the hills, this meant that there were some very high scores set by everyone. The Micra performed very well, and didn’t miss a beat all day. However after a shortened afternoon the scores showed that I had once again been beaten by the Wife, although this time only by one point. ……. I took 6th in class and Suze was 5th in class and took the Top Lady award.

And it doesn’t stop there, we are off doing another CMC 12 car on Friday night (after I’m writing this) and then the following weekend it is the first of CMC’s Gymkhana’s. So another couple of events for the Rover……

Thanks go to Suze, Kevin and all the event organisers and marshals on all the events


Update, the CMC 12 car.... we came in 3rd overall and 1st in class which was good result after ending up off the map and getting a pucture :)