For anyone I haven't forewarned this was my first road rally in the driving seat. It's the culmination of 10months of effort after dragging the ‘Grape’ a Purple 4door 998cc Nissan Micra I owned out of the hedgerow it had been stored in since 2009. Virtually every element of its road rally spec preparation has been re-done replaced or modified as cheaply as possible along the way. Including a full service, some MOT work and a slide into a curb which smashed a back axle and a complete front corner along the way it’s been quite a task. Together we competed as car 36 on the Matlock motor club Dansport road rally on 3rd4th Nov. Essentially she went round without missing a beat. Ian and I had a great time on this rally though our result is tinged with a little disappointment. We finished 27th overall and 6th in Semi expert class.
The fun began in Chez Perez special test. Ian was disappointed with the quality of the test diagram and could barely call the route. A lot of the first lap was done 'drive what you see.' We went through a gateway into a field and set off up the right side. When the car began to sink into soft mud I knew it was wrong so reversed to set off the right direction again. Then I spotted the passage control board as I overshot it so reversed for a 2nd time. We set one of the slowest times in there though I'm sure we were sideways when the cameras flashed ;-)
Heading north out of Youlgreave we set off from ntc3 and within 1km we found 3 rally cars stopped in a line with a tractor and silage truck at 90deg to the road. The front driver walked down the line informing us the farmer had been woken by the rally and the tractor was staying there for the night. I turned around and notified the control, then the queue of cars. I suggested we cut some route but Ian said we should go get the codeboards in case the organisers decided not to scrub the section. We dropped 8 min in there but it's a good job we did or we would have taken much bigger penalties like other cars did as you can see from the passage checks on the bottom of timecard1.
There was more excitement when we came around a shallow left curve just west of Bakewell and overshot a control by about 20meters, the control board wasn't well placed just after the bend. The marshals were friendly there, though I don't recall getting any ‘discount’ on our arrival time! ;-)
Just before fuel Ian called a passage check G, we didn't find it where we expected it so we asked other navs about it. They said it was manned, we couldn't miss a manned one could we? We hadn't even missed the only unmanned code board thus far on the rally! It turned out that one of the manned PC's earlier hadn't signed the timecard. Subsequent marshals had signed the next empty box and not the correct box which left us thinking we hadn't found G. We presume the marshals check sheet would prove our attendance but when we queried it with results team at the end of the rally we were told it was our responsibility to ensure we had the correct marks in the correct places. We agreed and took 5mins pens on the chin.
Somewhere up ahead we saw blue flashing lights, dipped headlights found a Police car with a competitor stopped, drove politely by and picked up the pace again 400m later. It turns out they delayed every subsequent competitor just for fun. We overshot the odd codeboard and a slot right into a white, one time I even tried to set off into a timed to the second section in neutral gear!
A white called Brook Bottom not far south of Bamford IIRC was incredibly rough. It started uphill with large unavoidable stones. When I picked up 2nd gear the progress was actually slowing and it felt like there was something wrong with the car. I had to drop back down a cog to speed up again. As the track levelled and crested the terrain changed to a typical white with, not large, but deep puddles. I managed to bang the front of the car down hard into one hole causing the release of a pair of oofs! from inside the car. A quick shake and brake at the end confirmed nothing was severely damaged though. I need to take a look around underneath asap.
We handed in timecard1 and made up our 15mins of lateness at fuel in Bamford.
Timecard2 went better. This took us down Barlow bumps, up Unthank and over towards Dronfield. We crossed M1 at Barlborough J30 and did a few short sections on map 120. In neutrals we skirted Worksop and later Shirebrook. We found a control very close to a SGW T junction with no marshals, turned around to see if it was a PC in disguise, it wasn't so we lost time. In a junction on the left we overshot a triangle and further on, a slot left which saw us doing our one and only handbrake Uturn. The rally ended underneath the M1 on the Stainsby road not far from J29. Viewed on it's own we were 15th quickest on Timecard2
We arrived at breakfast to find we were lying 32nd after timecard1. The ‘tractor incident’ was being considered by the results team but the section wasn’t scrubbed. Force majeure – it didn’t affect over 50% of the field’ was the reason we were given?! This left us with a bad taste. I felt a way to scrub it would have been found if it had somehow affected the first 10 cars and not the rest of the field.
Early in the event my tachometer pod mount disassembled itself spilling the rev counter to dangle by its wires blowing it's bulb in the process. I jammed it back together but had to keep checking it for the rest of the night. The handbrake is very difficult to lock the wheels unless the road is dirty or I have plenty of momentum. Despite being fully serviced and having some parts swapped before the event I feel it's going to be a problem next time out where I know there are going to be 22 not as map (NAM) triangles. The interior heating is way below par though the screen demist isn't a problem. The seats made Ian’s butt go numb, something I've experienced in many different cars, the backs of my thighs ached too, must do something about this for next time. It turns out my bendy stalk map light mounted on the navigator A pillar gets in the way when he proffers the timecard to marshals. I kept wondering how come there were so many photographers and where they were located until I mentioned it to Ian. 'No' he said, 'that's just when my foot catches the interior light switch on the footrest' Lol
There were lots of variety in the frostiness of the roads out there but the grip was surprisingly good, there was the occasional slide and braking lock up but nothing got out of hand or scary. So far I only managed to give it a jetwash but preparation now begins for another outing next weekend on the Rally Bryniau in Mold North Wales on maps 116 & 117 with a different navigator.
Go on the Grape! Take off the 5min PC penalty and 7min for the tractor incident, do a better job in Chez Perez and we have a top 20 result. We all have a story like that though don’t we?
I'll post any pixtures as I gather them.
