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Thanks to Aron Brown for the photos |
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After far too long a period away from the stages, the
weekend of the 5th May find us back in the car and out on the stages at
Down Ampney, half way between Cirencester and Swindon, as part of the
Owen Developments Stages rally for 2007. Since our last outing in late
2003, the car has had a good going over and received lots of attention
to various bits, none moreso than the front brakes - which are now
sporting huge AP 280mm discs and 4-pot calipers over the previous 265mm
Alcons. The new wiring loom has sorted the car's running problems -
and the wonky headlight has finally been sorted, which will please
Big Dan immensely! Mike and Lindsay offered their services along with Julian (their transit van) so we ventured down on the Friday afternoon for a relaxed bit of scrutineering. This came and went without event (which you'd hope, given over 3 years to get the car ready!). Also along for the ride (so to speak) was long-standing team sponge boy, David Parry, covering for regular co-driver Dan Roach-Rooke who was unfortunately away on holiday. He looked resplendent in his 'new' overalls, fresh off of eBay and looking very flash, even if his helmet left a little more to be desired (according to the scrutineers, at least!). |
| Saturday morning arrived without incident and the weather
looked glorious for the day. The full entry was fielded, with us taking
up car 59 out of 65. Our seeding reflected a desire to take it easy and
use this as testing for a car which hadn't seen any action in a long
time, so we were quite happy with it. Little did we realise how on the
pace the car would be... Stage 1, then, and lined up ready for the off. Neatly off the line, Dave gets lost after the first few corners but soon settles down into his role nicely and we start to have some fun and muck about a bit. Over-enthusiastic use of the handbrake makes Dan giggle. A huge mass of water at one junction causes fun for the following three or four as the unique mix of water, mud and pigshit makes the concrete into an ice rink (no word of a lie). We sideswipe a few cones on the exit but get away with it, and a mental note is made for the rest of the day to take it very easy out of the other side of the water. |
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| Down Ampney is quite a small venue so it was fairly easy
to get a handle on the roads over the course of the day. With very few
natural corners, most of it is 'engineered' with liberal use of cones,
tyres and fencing (and the aforementioned pig shit, of course). Braking
for numerous chicanes on the long straights, it soon become apparent
that Dan had to learn a completely new set of braking points with the
new stoppers on the car - they were such an improvement that he found
himself hauling the car up way too early. Towards the end of the day he
was having great fun reeling in cars on the brakes, sometimes making up
several car lengths on the entrance to chicanes alone. We came out of SS4 with a strange reluctance to idle (the car, not us) but this didn't seem to hamper our progress on stage. Various possibilities were investigated but on the day we found nothing but a sheared manifold stud. Later investigation back at home revealed that the stud was indeed the cause, as the gasket had slipped round on the remaining stud and was leaking air and possibly had blocked the injector path into the cylinder head. New stud, new gasket - all back to normal again. |
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The stages continued without too much fuss but the
venue was claiming it's fair share of retirements including fellow
Streetly MC members Ade and Erik, who were running up front in their
Grp.A Escort Cosworth until a driveshaft failure took them out on the
penultimate stage. For our part, we were up to 15th overall and 4th in
class going into the final stage. Then a stupid mistake by myself put
us off on a junction - only a minor off - but the car stalled and
refused to start. Thanks to the marshalls nearby who push-started us
off again! It lost us about 30 seconds. We pulled into the service area at the end of a long, warm day and took 20th overall, with a 5th (out of 23) in class - which I think marks our best result to date? In hindsight I should have "gone for it" a bit more from the outset but looking at the stage times a class podium finish would have been a long way off, and it was only the retirements of several leading crews that moved us up the order. Hey, I shouldn't be so negative - podium win on the next one ;-) !! Details of the event can be found on the EMCOS website - www.emcos.co.uk As usual, a great big thanks to all the crew who came and helped out - Mikey, Lindsay, Aron and Cal. A special thanks to Dave for offering to help out in the co-driver's seat; you honestly did great (with no disrespect intended to regular navvie!). |