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Many thanks to Stuart at Pose Rallying and Mark at www.rallygallery.com for the photos |
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The weekend of June 6th/7th saw us return to Abingdon for the CARnival Stages, one of Dan's favourite venues and also
the rally that resulted in the termination of the previous years efforts when Dan stoved the car into a military trailer
and put the car out of action for the rest of the year! Hoping not to repeat the incidents from last year, the car was
now sporting a conventional master cylinder instead of the adjustable bias box of previous. As usual, the event is a combination of a sprint on the Saturday and a rally on the Sunday, with scrutineering being performed on the Saturday. This makes for a really relaxed weekend to enjoy the motorsport and have some fun. We were also joined and co-servicing with two of Streetly MC's members, rallying veteran George Cooke (Tomsport) and Nikki Breslin who was venturing out on his first ever event in his Citroen AX GT... |
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We were seeded at 75th, an improvement over last year, and were hoping to hold this position despite a wealth of
skilled drivers behind us, including some talented late entries who were placed right at the back of the 110 car
field. The venue was little changed from previous years although not quite identical and, being such a charismatic
set of stages, there were some parts that were easily memorable due to their notoriety... namely the ammo dumps at the
back of the venue, and control tower complex and the open spectator section... and ofcourse, we couldn't forget Dan's Corner
from last year, could we? The first few stages were easy sailing with nothing worthy of note. The car went fine but we found ourselves consistently held up through the narrow sections by other competitors (not their fault; just the way the venue is laid out). This was a little frustrating but there was nothing to be done about it as there was no-where to pass, so we just sat it out until the stages opened up and we could push on. Everyone was very accomodating, except for the Focus driver who was either deaf, blind or purposely stayed in the middle of the stage to prevent us passing at one point - Dan was just about to take to the grass when he had a change of heart and let us pass - oh well. |  |
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Then, 3 stages left, the skies started to look a bit dark and it was now looking likely that rain may be on the way. It was choice
time - stick with the grippy part-worns or put a fresh set of A032s on the front to maximise grip in the potential onslaught?
We opted for the change, and put a fresh set of A032's on the front of the pug. This proved the right thing to do as queued up
for stage 6, when it proceeded to chuck it down, dumping vast quantities of standing water all over the stage. I was now in
a position to draw on my past experiences to help get me through the stage! My thoughts were that it would stop raining and the heat from earlier would dry the track pretty quick, but for this one
stage I knew there would be lots of standing water and it would be slippy. So we just backed off for one, hoping the attrition
rate would take a noticable increase. Plus, ofcourse, I had the gremlins in the back of my mind reminding me of last year - and
I wasn't up for another month rebuilding a car and ruining the rest of the season!
Sure enough, the same old corner arrived and Big Dan muttered something along the lines of "Fast right into the 'giveitdeath' corner, I'd like to make it round it this time please". We made it round perfectly fine with no heroics, but the stage was proving as slippy as anticipated, with standing water in places. This made for some very tail-out moments and some entertaining tussles with other cars, including the talented (or bonkers?!) Henry Whitfield in the Vision Motorsport Astra - a chap I met while servicing with Andy Corner. He was hilarious to watch catching us up, sideways round every bend, and he soon caught and passed us - mad as a box of frogs but amusing to watch nonetheless. With the stage over it was apparent that there had been quite a few offs, some in a very similar fashion to the year previous. Well, that's experience for you I guess. With the downpour now halted, the penultimate stage had started to dry out by the time we ran through it - and by the time the last stage had arrived the airfield was pretty much dried out and we were back up to pace. We brought it home to a 41st overall, and 14th in class. As for the HoE, it gained us some valuable points and brings us into the front running for our class, currently 3rd in the 1600-2000 class. |
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The event as a whole was as impressive as previous
years, although my one redeeming memory was despite our higher seeding how much we spent the majority of our time held up in
the tight sections. This isn't really a dig at anyone, it's just the nature of the venue unfortunately. But it was definately
good fun doing the chasing! Congratulations to George Cooke and Stu "Spew" Yates for their finish and commiserations to Nikki
Breslin and Cal McElhinney on their retirement on SS1; Nikki's first event and an unfortunate way to start his rallying
'career'. Details of the event can be found on the Sutton & Cheam website - www.scmc.co.uk As usual, a great big thanks to all the crew who came and helped out - Chris & Karen Larr, Trev, Becks, Marijke and our annual Abingdon expert, Tim Wyatt. |