Today was the Mini Tempest Stages 2008, at Longcross, the great test track near Bracknell (just next to the M3), in Ray Read's Audi Quattro Turbo - me nagivating for him as his regular nav, Stuart, couldn't do it. Did the 78 mile trip to there in an amazing 1 hour 5 minutes, handy as I'd realised my made-up lead to path my intercom into his was wrong, so I thought I'd have time to do it when I got there. Unfortunately Ray was a bit delayed so we didn't get to the service area until about 8am, got everything set up and I sorted the problem once we'd scrutineered (nice to have NO worries about the car at all when scrutineering - the joys of being a navigator) and done documentation.



The entry today was strong - there was some quality machinery there, including some ex-works F2 cars (FWD, lots of power, wide bodied, such as Maxi 306 and Nissan Sunny), and the usual selection of Escorts, Cosworths, Evos and so on. A real novelty being seeded at 33, much less waiting around, although Ray wasn't happy being "that far back"! We got to the arrival, and got everything ready for the stage. Ray was a bit nervy as he'd not driven the car in anger since 2006, but once we were ready at the start line he seemed fine, and off we went - 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, GO!!!!

This car is quick. I've been in some fast road cars, but you can't really give a car anywhere near this amount of beans on the road. Ray was going for a finish, so he wasn't snapping the car around, but it was still a very quick, smooth drive. The stage was a bit damp so it was a bit slippy, and we did the first part of the stage (there are two splits per lap, making for intense traffic situations) including the run up the steep hill really well - everything was going OK. The next time round Ray missed the split where we should have turned left, braking a bit too late and taking some cones out in the process - we later found out we got a max for that, which was a pity as it wasn't the best laid-out split in the world, but ho hum....

One the next time round, we were going down the back straight (about 600 yards) when BOOOF! A puff of what looked like steam came from under the bonnet, and the car stopped. We'd blown an Intercooler pipe off, and Ray had to get out to disconnect the air flow meter (which would now be seeing no airflow) to allow the car to run back to the start. We did the rest of the stage at a "crawl" (Although still quicker than the Skoda, I think!), and got a time of 10:43, much quicker than the maximum we thought we'd avoided. Alas, no!

Once in service it was fairly straightforward to sort the intercooler pipe problem (although if it would hold was another matter as the flexible pipe was a little on the short side), and time to go back out again for a re-run, SS2. This time we were far less nervous - no problems, hopefully, on this run.

This time, things went better. A LOT better in fact - everything went to plan - we didn't catch any traffic at any point, although there was an Escort Cosworth we thought we'd catch, but he was finishing as we went round for another lap. There was a mega-quick Corsa (car 20) which was as fast as the Quattro. Which wasn't slow - I saw nearly 110 on the speedo on the back straight, but it felt faster. Ray was driving smoothly and in a really controlled manner, and it felt good; there was the odd clunk here and there (apparently from the springs on the spring seats when unloaded), but mostly just speed and grip. Going round the snake was interesting - there is a crest which is more like a flat-topped hill, and going over that the car got airborne, with the front going very light - you couldn't see anything for a fraction of the second, and each time I hoped there'd be nothing to see but road when vision returned. All the splits went fine, all the merges were clear, and a chicane had been destroyed which helped us at one point - the Quattro is very wide which demands precision and care when going through, slowing us considerably. Still not slow though.

With everything going OK, our time? 8:18. 22 seconds off the fastest, which was good considering the controlled and safe way Ray was driving - at no point did it seem hairy (apart from the brute speed) - there were no dramas, just acceleration and braking which was always powerful but never out of control. Brilliant.

Back to service, nothing to do really. Well, not for me - I don't know much about the car, and the guys all had their routines, so it was out of my hands.

SS3 was a small change from 2, with part of the track altered and run in the opposite direction, but mostly the same. Once more we got a good start, and saw a few cars off, some of them looking really messy. Around half way through the stage, there was a noise from the back of the car - it sounded road-speed related, as if the diff was complaining, and only happened on load. In addition as we "crawled" round to the end of the stage to avoid a maximum (which the car was so quick elsewhere would still mean around 6 minutes of loss if we took one) the engine seemed to be losing power, and becoming noisier and hotter. Dammit.

Once back in service, the back of the car was inspected and seemed OK, but would only really show up under load. Stu got in the car to listen and we noticed the exhaust seemed noisy at the front, and the car was smoking a lot. When they got back, we had another look under the bonnet and I noticed that one of the bolts that holds the exhaust part of the turbo in place (the housing that goes round the impeller) was missing, and it looked like another one too. It turned out I was right - the housing was actually loose, explaining the loss of power. There wasn't a lot of time left, so Stu bolted it back up, and put a new bolt in as best he could. We set off to the SS4 arrival, and got there just in time. We'd have to suck it and see...

5, 4, 3, 2, 1... GO!

No boost.

No power.

No point.

We limped round and short-circuited the stage, getting a time of 1:30, as we'd done very little of it - best to save the car as it seemed to be losing a lot of oil.

Back in service, we found that the turbo had in fact seized completely. Game over.

After the disappointment had worn off (I kept it quiet, but clearly I was gutted as it's not often I'll get to go in a car as quick as this), it was time to pack up and go home. As I said to Ray - "no-one died". Obviously it was a massive disappointment as we'd only really got one full stage at speed, and 2 full speed stages in total (half of SS1 and SS3), but he had a lot more to worry about than I did - I could just go home and wash my suit and that was largely it. Ray's got to fix the mighty beast before his next event, in 5 weeks' time. I hope he gets it all sorted, as he and all his crew are nice guys, and the car is amazing. Hopefully I can get another ride in it in the future, as it was brilliant while it lasted.

So, R477 KRU is a bit tired after WRGB and the Sunseeker. Nothing major, but the front panel of the "reinforced" bodyshell on later Felicias is nowhere near as strong as the older model; the lower section is just single thickness steel, and mounting the sumpguard to it and then doing a few front-heavy landings on WRGB and some big hits on the Sunseeker has meant the front needs fixing - it's a couple of inches back from where it should be and obviously needs to be stronger. In addition the engine is a bit tired (and let's face it, given the state of the cars owned by the guy I bought it from, it needs to be looked at as a matter of urgency!), and the box needs the diff sorting out as it's really not locking up any more.

Which isn't major work, but the problem is that since the intense part of the build of the car the garage has become somewhat of a dumping ground - there are all sorts of bits in many boxes, and also I stripped a LHD donor car when I got the new shell as well, so it's a real nightmare. Add to that the fact that the garage hasn't really had much done to it in 15 years, and it was time to get serious. If you're going to build an engine, it needs to be done in the right environment if it's going to work well. And work well it must! So I've spent the last week clearing out, sorting things out, fitting new (yes, NEW) cupboards to the wall, etc. I've got to wait for the paint to dry on the walls before putting the shelving back, because it took 5 coats to cover the oil - it's really that bad there. But it'll be worth it in the end as there will be a nice clean room to work in so I can do a top job on the engine.

But something far more exciting than that has happened. I'm the webmaster of my local car club - Bournemouth and District Car Club - and got an email on Monday which was saying that a member needed a navigator for a one-off event at Longcross. This, it transpired is a Quattro Turbo, and a quick one at that. I told Ray (the car's owner and driver) that I'd done a season navigating as well as some other stuff and also drove a bit, and went to see the car last night. It's awesome. Ray's a really nice guy, as is his navigator Stuart, so I'm really looking forward to April 20th at Longcross. It should be fantastic. Pictures will definitely follow as this is a really awesome car - it snarls and chatters, and goes like a rocket. Wonderful.

Usually I don't sleep well when I'm rallying - I'm often a bit nervy but this year I was quite relaxed - everything was well prepared and the stages were all well known. So it was a surprise to me to wake up at 4am and not be able to get back to sleep for over an hour. Just the start I needed. But then it got worse - got a text from Paul saying he'd been throwing up all night and was very dodgy. Whether this was from the burger he'd had in service, or from the nerves of giving the ring to Clair, who knows. But it was a relief when he turned up at 8:40, and seemed at least able to sit in the car for a bit. We got to service with an hour to spare, said hello to everyone and then swapped to gravel tyres, and were ready to go. Totally forgot to remove the lamp pod, d'oh! This was pointed out on the control leaving service, but there you go. Just don't crash!

Off to SS3, which is Ebblake, just a short drive from service. This is one of my favourite stages - it's really good gravel, with some decent corners, a good thrash at the end, and a tight section in the middle (where I went off last year for a bit). While we didn't go flat out, we did OK, and got to the end of the stage - at this point I was more worried that Paul would be throwing up (although we'd agreed to carry on until it was too much), so to find out that the stages felt better than the road sections was pleasing to me as well as him. On the road section afterwards it was a pity to see Geoff Bennett's Escort by the side of the road, apparently with engine failure.

SS4 is Shannon 1, the section of forest south of Ringwood Forest, and is a tale of two different surfaces - it starts out with good gravel, but then develops into a long section of black, peaty soil which really grabs the car if you don't tell it who's boss. Each year I can see that I've improved as the first year here I found it quite scary in places with the car pulling all over the place. Now I just deal with it and get it to go where I want, and am making much better entries into corners, taking better lines and getting the car set up for the next straight. BUT there were some MASSIVE hits in this stage - really dodgy potholes that had the suspension going coil-bound and the sumpguard banging on the ground, so much so that the trip computer had a hernia and crashed. Oh dear, another £200 on the bill. Saw a LOT of cars by the side of the road, including Gary Hayter's Impreza, apparently with a dead engine. But the stage itself went better, carrying more speed through corners and trusting in my ability to get it back when it gets a bit lairy.

SS5 is Mount Ararat which at just over 10 miles is the second-longest stage on the event, and about 1/6 of the gravel mileage as well. It's a real favourite of mine because it's a chance to get into driving and keep a good rhythm, and the stage is nearly all good quality gravel with some interesting bits in it as well as some flat-out straights (which again this year I took without backing off, which is an improvement albeit a little one!). There are usually loads of people about on this, and it was no exception this year. Normally we get caught by whoever is behind us on this stage (indeed, 2 people on one run one year) but not this year - we made a really good job, with Paul calling the notes in his usual authoratitive and clear style (and pointing out any errors in them too!), and me driving the car harder than I had done before - there were a few moments where it was getting a bit too lairy, but I got it back every time, which gave me the confidence to push a bit harder. We got to the end and really felt it was a good job - the car was running well, and we were doing well, despite Paul still feeling ill.

SS6 was Somerley 1 - always good fun, this time in the "reverse" direction first, heading back towards Bournemouth from the rear of the estate. We had a fairly good run here, aside from me screwing up the acute right that is at the back section of the course, the rest went well. Heading through the main approach to the house is always a bit scary as there are logs on either side of the road, but this year I felt much more able to push on, and made good time through here. Paul reminded me of the decrease in grip on the tarmac section (reason being that I always forget I'm on gravel rubber), and we got through OK without any mishaps aside from a missed gearchange in front of everyone, apparently (thanks for pointing that out, Ian!), and off into the forest section again, which was great fun aside from the horrible "big chicane" towards the end of the section which I think is just a way for us to dig up a section of the grounds - it's always a real trial here as it's very cut up by the time we get there. The rest of the stage was just good fun.

Then it was back to service, which was a bit quiet due to Gary not being there and also Barry Purrett who'd withdrawn due to ill health - a real pity as Barry's a really great guy and has been very handy to watch on the stages on the times he's overtaken me - watching his lines into corners is very useful. Not a lot to do to the car, aside from clean the rear wheels out which had collected a lot of stones and were miles out of balance, check everything over and then find out that the air filters were splitting, and I didn't want them to get sucked into the engine. A suitable replacement was sourced and fitted (a pair of Mr. Hayter's finest socks, cable-tied to the bellmouths), and we were good to go. We found out that another B9 car had gone out, John Flippance (although he was behind us), meaning it looked like a 2-horse race for second in class awards between us and the Becketts in the other Skoda. At the moment we were ahead of them, gapping them on every stage, although the car still wasn't running 100% - it has a flat spot at 6k and wouldn't rev out consistently.

Off out to Wareham, firstly for Bere Wood, which is half good, half painful!



The first section is good forest track with great corners but demands care due to the amount of logs by the side of the road. The second section is much rougher and then develops into a tight farm track which means real precision, but it all went OK - it's only about 1.5 miles so was over quickly, even in the Skoda! Well worth finishing as well due to the presence of Miss Pink at time card collection.

Next up, Lawson Clump, known as Gore Heath. This isn't a favourite stage of mine as it's SO soft, but this year the lack of rain made it a bit better; it still wasn't great but at least meant we weren't getting bogged down, and the last section of it is good - again, better quality track where the logging takes place and the road is actually maintained properly. All good so far...

There's a short crossing of the road (with a policeman waiting there, no doubt to catch people who haven't removed their helmets to cross the road) and then into Wareham, which is marshalled by my car club, so always means more chatter at the start and end controls. The stage itself had again benefitted from the lack of water in the area, meaning it was far more driveable than it often is - there were a few cars off here and there, but nothing to worry about, and a few people wondering about despite us being much louder than usual and hitting the horn a lot - crazy! At the end it was really rough, and the car was taking a LOT of hits underneath. We got to the finish control OK and drove off, and then BANG BANG BANG underneath. I was certain there was something loose, and when we got to time card collection I got out to find that the exhaust had broken all three mountings and was just banging about, despite being still connected. Mare. I cobbled something up quickly with the tow-rope holding the silencer in place and got to the next arrival control, and then made a more permanent cable-tie fix for the tailpipe, and set off while still settling into the car - it was that tight for us not to lose time. The stage went OK for the most part but was HIDEOUSLY poor condition. We'd been warned that there was a car off at one point, and to slow and avoid the water. And this was no joke - what looked like a normal puddle on the racing line now contained a Fiesta, sunk up to the half way mark. This was the same place that someone had a nasty accident last year and the stage was shortened as a result. The FC really should do better as this was a dry year - with the money that is taken for rally entry, they should be putting more into making sure this sort of thing doesn't happen, I think.

But this soon faded into the distance as suddenly our universe became a very LOUD place. The front exhaust joint had slipped off, meaning we were running with just the manifold on, and it was too loud to hear anything - the intercom picked this stage to stop working, so I had to drive slowly and rely on hand signals from Paul. Disaster - we got to the end of the stage in the loudest car in the universe, but carried on to time card collection (up the road), and decided to carry on unless we were stopped - I felt I could refit the exhaust before the next stage. Paul begged to differ, as he was sure he'd seen the exhaust section fall off!

We got to a petrol station to put fuel in and discovered... Paul was right! The middle section of the exhaust was completely missing. No chance of a fix, no way of sorting it today. And the police up the road pulling someone over. Still, time for Somerley 2, I thought. We got there without the Police (amazing as I felt they'd hear us from Bournemouth) and when we got to arrival the marshals just said it sounded a bit sick. Which it was - it wouldn't rev much above 5k, and sounded HUGELY loud. THe intercom only worked when I held the cable in one position so I had to use the velcro overstrap on the helmet to keep it in place, and we made a fair crack of the stage despite all this. There were a few cut-out moments where I couldn't hear what was coming, typically where I didn't know the stage too well, but we got through and then did the road section back to service.

Had a nice chat with James from Motorsports News, and was waiting to be stopped, something that wasn't helped by the law turning up in a car, and I just hoped they'd pass before I needed to book in. Again the marshal raised an eyebrow, but we booked in, and that was that! We checked the car over, all well, so decided to pack everything up. I was convinced we'd be stopped from competing. We were loud - certainly not as loud as Chris Atkinson's Impreza WRC was on rally GB, but as Paul said - if it was a Subaru, no-one would question it, but as it's a Skoda.....

The service out control was where I was expecting an issue, due to the seniorority of the staff there. I was amazed when I was just asked if it was going to get any louder, and we passed on and out of service! We were going to get a crack at the last two stages, great news. Arrived at Plumley Wood with plenty of time to spare and took a picture of the Skoda ready to give it a last crack!



Again, this is a great stage, a near-total reversal of SS5, but a great chance to get into it at nearly 11 miles long. And it went well - really well considering the car was well down on power and Paul wasn't feeling at his best at all - it had been a long, tiring day and he'd not slept and felt terrible as well. No major dramas, and nothing too scary to report - not many cars that I noticed off, but plenty of people still in the forests cheering everyone on (or waiting for an accident!), and a real feeling of achievement to get to the end. Just one more stage to go....

Just a quick hop across the road for Shannon 2, and again more raised eyebrows from the marshals and start crew when we rolled up with our little bundle of noise. The car wasn't too happy about starting, but did so and off we went, although the intercom was really playing up now - I think about 50% of the calls needed repeating, but only a few were absent, fortunately not at dodgy moments. The stage seemed smoother this way round, the bad dips weren't a problem where they had been before. The soft peaty section was very bad this time through, and there were a couple of moments popping out of the ruts and potentially into the trees, but it didn't happen. The end of this stage is great as it's good gravel and a last chance to give the car some, although it really wasn't keen, poor dear!

And we'd done it. Well, the stages anyway. I was fully expecting to be told that a trip into Bournemouth wasn't an option given the noise level of the car, but it wasn't even mentioned. We waited in the holding control for about 30 minutes and then off to town - this had been done to reduce the queue on Richmond hill, and actually worked quite well. Glad to see some friends at the bottom of the hill (which I could handily coast down to save on the noise), was interviewed by the Echo and Rally Results magazine, and photographed a lot. As ever, some kids wanted the road books and a few pics inside the car, and unusally we had quite a few cars behind us! Finally got onto the finish ramp and was interviewed by Alan Hyde who does WRGB as well as the Sunseeker. The noise went down well with the crowd, which was handy as it REALLY sounded loud in the square....

So that was it. We'd finished the Sunseeker in R477 KRU, despite the lack of an exhaust (and power) for half the event. Back home, get the stuff, pack up and then off to the awards ceremony, only to find that because of a "clerical error" we wouldn't be getting the award in the ceremony or mentioned in the results. 5 starters in B9, we were second, but there you go. Fortunately the awards weren't presented by Jimmy McRae, otherwise I would have been gutted to miss out on that opportunity, but I guess it's not all bad. The car's a bit damaged, but not too bad, and we have a LONG time before Rally GB. Hopefully I'll have all the issues ironed out by then, 'cos that is definitely the last chance to do anything of that scale I'll ever have.

Today has been very odd - a number of things have changed, making it quite unusual. Firstly, the scrutineering time and so on, and then preparation for the evening. And suddenly it was time to go down to Canford Arena and get going, but it was still really quiet there - a lot of people missing (including Gary Hayter - we were later to find out he'd had ECU failure earlier and spent the day sorting that out!) and it just didn't seem "right" somehow, but we got into the car and ready to book in when.... a 15 minute delay. Apparently a spectator had fallen over and broken their leg meaning we'd have to wait while an ambulance retrieved them and the stage could go live. Which gave us a chance to adjust the harness straps, which was handy, and then off to Bournemouth. One of the demo 6R4s was broken down outside my house, so he'd made it all of 2 miles - nightmare. When we got to SS1 start queue, it was time for Burley to give Clair the engagement ring he'd picked up earlier, in front of a big crowd! Nice to see old and new faces, and give an interview for Globecast, again like a big kid, I was as ever OTT, no doubt!

And then into the stage. We'd been told it was a bit wet and sandy and it certainly was. VERY tight in the chicane coming onto the pier, and then very sandy and wet there and all the way along the seafront. The chicanes were as tight as ever, and a marshal in a high-vis jacket hiding in a shelter made it very difficult to judge one of the faster corners accurately, which was a real pain. The car wouldn't quite 'clear' but went OK. Time wasn't great - 2:01, but I didn't bin it. Back round to the start of SS2, and then into that again. There was an Evo in front of us on the start line which put out a hideous cloud of crap when it went from the line, and we were off again! This time I got things closer to being right, which made us an extra 4 seconds, doing it in 1:57. However, a messy bit of writing from a marshal has meant we've been given a time of 2:17. As always, problems on SS1/2 with timing. Grrr!!!! I know marshals give their time to help, but they really should make sure they write clearly - for us it just means a bit of a target for tomorrow, but for some it might mean real issues. Anyway, at the end of SS2 I saw the Evo pulled over after the finish with steam coming out of the front, bonnet open. Oh dear.

Coming back was a bit tight for time - we needed to stop for fuel at a petrol station, and dawdling drivers elsewhere meant we could drive straight in. And leave everything for the morning - we have a 9:51 start time, so we may as well do everything then, only wheels to change anyway, and check everything over. I found out after getting home that one of the B9 cars (#92, a very quick Peugeot 106) has retired already, so there are now 4 in class, and second place is looking a possibility if we keep it together. IF.

Scrutineering at the Litledown is a really pleasant experience, despite still being scrutineering! It's a really well-organised affair, and there's lots going on there, and people are encouraged to come down to see the cars being checked over. Had the pleasure of being photographed by a couple of my students (Rob and Sean), so no doubt there will be some embarrassing photos of some point passed round school. Lovely.

Scrutineeering, no problem. Documentation, no problem - we're well on the case there. Even managed to get my car parked next to the doddmobiles, not between them as I'd wanted but this is the next best thing!

... usually on the Sunseeker as a local crew, I have an early scrutineering time, meaning we have to get down to Canford Arena early (usually just as the crew are getting there, in fact), noise test quickly and then get down to the Littledown Centre for scrutineering. But this year it's different - we're in the last-but-one slot of 14:30, meaning a leisurely start to the day, but it also means that I have to sit around and wait for scrutineering and anyone who knows me will know I'm not exactly Mr. Calm at this time. Never mind...

There are big, big bonuses to doing the Sunseeker. One of the major ones is it being local - the event is much cheaper for me to enter as I don't need to trailer the car anywhere, get accomodation and all the other stuff. The service area is 1.5 miles from my home, which is great. If anything goes wrong (and thankfully in the last 3 attempts nothing terminal has happened) I'm near home. But there's one thing I'd forgotten about, and that's seeing the ever-lovely Jemma Pink to get my stickers from. Unfortunately I had no excuse to make any more than a moment's conversation. Perhaps next year I'll feign a serious injury or something.

Anyway, the car passed noise test (at 95dB which is nice and throaty!), and I then came home to put the stickers on the car. Unfortunately my ordered-up stickers of "Jones/Burley" for the rear windows haven't arrived, so at the moment I've left the big "Jones" in the rear window, but if Burley's not happy with that, they'll be coming off later!

Ages ago (when I started getting R477 KRU into shape) I had the pipes bent up for a stainless 2" exhaust system, and also bought a nice shiny 2" stainless tailpipe from Jetex. I didn't use them as I got a ready-made system with all the other stuff I bought (including the brand new shell), but as the tailpipe did a lemming on day one of WRGB and we 'bodged' it using a standard (1.5") tailpipe to keep the noise at a legal(ish) level, it was time to put these bits into service.

Amazingly, this actually all worked out fairly well. I had to make some mods to the existing pipe to get the new section to fit into it, and also cut the over-axle section, but that was to be expected. The rest of it went according to plan - the whole thing took about 3 hours to get right, but that did include two trips to the MDC to get some clamps, and then to get the right size ones! And now, instead of sounding like a rattly, noisy, leaky old shed, it sounds like a rally car - loud, but not really loud, and with a lovely full tone. I am a happy camper!



Re-fitted all the door stuff after re-tinting the driver's window (for safety, not image), and went for a fairly long shakedown drive and fixed the few issues that arose - a few things needing tightening, the steering wheel putting on straight, etc. Overall, good stuff.

Changed over to the tarmac tyres (which are needed for scrutineering as you're supposed to turn up with what you're running on Friday night), and even have a matching spare for once (remembering that in 2006 a flat occurred just before going to MTC1) and put the green parts of the Skoda stickers onto the car - it went much better than the red bits did, probably 'cos it's not freezing and windy. The car will need a good clean tomorrow before scrutineering as I want it to look its best, but overall it's all OK. Fitted the GPS, can't find the lead for the Palm (which gives me a speedo which is handy as the LSD has no provision for one), which is a pain.

I cannot express how much I am looking forward to this. When I drove past the service area this afternoon I was like a kid. When the Echo turned up today I read it, thinking "I'm doing that", etc.... And in 24 hours, I'll be waiting to enter the time control for SS1. Magic.

So, the car is looking.... well, car-like. I've had a few days of "intermittent" work (it being Half Term means I don't have teaching to do, but I have other things instead), but still managed to get the car all cleaned up, and do a few jobs that have needed fixing since WRGB.

Strut tops - these have been a constant problem since fitting them -the top nuts just come undone no matter how much impact gun work goes into their tightening. So i've cross-drilled and tapped them and fitted grub screws into them which I've tightened. I hope this will stop them working loose.

Bumpers - my first attempt at painting meant the paint flaked off in places, but for under £5 it's not all bad. So I took 'em off and re-painted them. Job done!

Steering wheel - the cheap allen bolts that came with the wheel were rubbish - they came loose on SS8 and nearly led to an untimely end. So they've been replaced with something that can actually be torqued up, and with locknuts on the back, no less.

Exhaust -this is a job for tomorrow, but replacing the tailpipe is a priority as it's "a bit loud" at the moment...

There are lots of other things - cleanup from WRGB etc, but they're mundane and boring, aside from getting the WRGB stickers off intact again, so I have another set to stick somewhere!

There was a bit of a surprise in store though - I decided to change the rocker cover to one I'd painted black (I know, it's only looks) and to take a quick look at the top end. And to my surprise when I removed the old one.... two pieces of metal fell out. The original "splash guard", and they'd been hammering into the valve gear for some time by the rounded-off look of them. They don't seem to have done any serious damage, so I'll have to go with them - this engine will be being removed and rebuilt after the Sunseeker, so it only has to do 230 miles or so.... hopefully it'll do it OK!



But on the upside, I now have an engine bay that looks like this:



Which sounds AMAZING. It's so different from the old engine in N158UBD it's untrue. It really does sound great. And it goes really well too, so that's nice!

Tomorrow, there are final things to do - stickers to apply, intercom to sort out and GPS as well as other minor issues and the exhaust which I hope won't take the entire day, but given what I have to make up... maybe it will. Still, who wants to laze around anyway?

Having got back from Banjul and spent the rest of the time since working a lot, it's now time to turn to preparations for the Sunseeker, which is next Friday and Saturday in Bournemouth. Fortunately there are few things to do to the Felicia, and for the first time in 3 years we'll be running in class B9 instead of a homologated class. The reason for this? When I bought the engine and other car I also got a set of Weber Alpha throttle bodies, and it's a chance to run the car with those on - they'll make the car go a bit better and sound fantastic.

Aside from that there's not much to do - just clean and check everything, sort out the loose strut top issue (which is to be done by drilling and tapping the nuts to have a grub screw fitted to lock them in place), and give the old beast a good check over. Maybe I'll even get round to fitting the green stripes in addition to the red ones!

I see from the site stats that there are quite a few people reading this.

I won't go on, but if you have enjoyed this or seeing us out on the stages, please, please go to my Plymouth-Banjul Rally site and check out what I'm doing at Christmas - if you feel you can sponsor us in any way or with any amount, please do so, it will be hugely appreciated by us and those who get the sponsorship donations.

Often I find that when I've slept on something the solution becomes apparent. However this time I only slept until 2:55 am before spending the rest of the night worrying about what to do, and only when I went for a run did the solution appear - take the back box from the recce car and weld it to the rally car exhaust. Might sound obvious, but the standard exhaust is much smaller than the rally car one, so the idea was to leave a leaky joint, therefore not totally sapping the power (as the standard box is quite restrictive) but make it quiet enough to avoid frowns. But this was providing it would come off the recce car - otherwise we'd have to get a new one, and no-one could have one to us in time, so we went to service and amazingly, it looked like our luck had changed - we got the backbox off fairly easily, and then got everything prepped ready to put it on. You have a 10 minute service at the beginning of each day on WRGB, and this meant we had 10 minutes to get the car back to our area, get everything else done, get the exhaust welded on and get back to the service out control. And amazingly we did it - the car was HIDEOUSLY loud beforehand, people staring as we went, and afterwards it sounded OK - not quiet, but not loud at all. Got to the tyre marking area and then noticed another really BAD rattle from the front end - this was no doubt covered up before by the exhaust sound, and we stopped on the road section to take a look, but it looked like the top mount spherical bearing was loose, and there was nothing to do except just get on with it, so that's what we did. It's a long run up to SS7, Crychan, and even longer when every little lump in the road is greeted with a big rattle, but we got there OK, but only just - only a couple of minutes to spare, and this was after the last section was done with Paul calling the corners out from the map. Saturday's stages are my favourites, so this would hopefully be a chance to have good fun on some relatively smooth forest tracks. Unfortunately the battery for the camera had died, so we couldn't video the stage, but we headed in and got on with it instead!

Finally getting a chance to drive in good conditions mean that I could get on with actually driving, and the biggest problem I've had this year is a total lack of driving - the last time out was the Sunseeker, which went OK, but no better as it was still in the old car, so I was hoping I'd finally get a chance to drive the car and not think "I wish this was quicker up hill", and this actually happened. Becuase of the new exhaust it wasn't revving out as much as it should have, but it was going much, much better than last year's car, and was good fun to drive once I'd taken on board the extra revs and using 1st for hairpins. The thing that really made me clock that I was going quicker than last year was that on several corners the back was getting very loose and I had to back off in a few more places as things got twisty. Good fun. The C2R2 caught us about half way through the stage, and it worked out nicely (again), letting him past and not losing too much speed. Paul has got very good at letting me know how close cars behind are (or indeed not), and keeping me focused on what's in front, not behind, and this meant everything was going well. Some of the uphill sections were treacherously slippy (at one point we nearly left a totally straight stretch of road), but got to the end OK, but while we were waiting for the cars, the oil pressure light was flashing on tickover, not a good sign at all, and then it wouldn't re-start, took several goes before it finally lit up. I thought it was probably curtains, so went slowly to SS8 and let it cool down in case it was just very hot oil.

With an eye on a finish (at least getting to the stadium) I decided to take Epynt a bit easier, and this was a mistake. I've got quite used to pulling the front round using a bit of power, and when you try not to do that, you understeer off very quickly. So this was soon given up and I just got on with it instead - I'd rather blow the engine up than hit a rock, much easier to fix! Once we got going properly, it was good fun again, with some cars off in very, VERY odd places and positions. The "top" of Epynt is a long tarmac road, and here the car's lack of outright power and steep gearing left it feeling a bit slow (but again much quicker than last year), and then there's another section where it's a road which is cut into the surface of the hill. This section was a problem on recce - it seemed OK last year, but we didn't get it right either time this year, but I said to leave the notes as is, and it worked just fine - took it quite quickly, but it was hard and rutted, far worse than last year. The finish of Epynt is a good section as well, with some 2 and 3 corners, so we can crack on a bit, and it was all feeling good, aside from the rattle which I was trying my best to ignore....



Pic courtesy of Rob Lees, SS8, Epynt 1

And now, onto Halfway. This is my favourite stage of the lot as it starts out with some great 'forest' mileage, and then opens up into the army roads at the end which are a different kettle of fish, and if you get 'em wrong, there will be "rock issues", so care is necessary, and also two mates had come to see us and I wanted to (a) get there and (b) not show us up! The first section went pretty well, probably as well as I've ever driven - there seems to come a point where the calls just go in without thinking about them, and it starts to flow properly; each corner you come to goes well (relatively), and you can already 'see' what's about to happen from the calls that are coming. We were being caught by the C2, but then he must have had an issue as again Paul gave me in-depth reports on his progress and then lack of it, so we were on our own for a bit until an Evo ate us, so we let it go, before getting to the last section, which went pretty well, despite a problem with the notes; luckily it was a section that I remembered OK, and there were no issues aside from a change onto tarmac (at a different place to last year's SS12 problem) being a MASSIVE hit, again I was expecting the car to have broken, and again was pleased that Skoda made 'em tough! We got to the point where our mates were, and I was vaguely aware of a man on a hilltop waving like a maniac, later to find that this was indeed Jim and Stu! By the end of the stage, all was well, and the oil pressure problem wasn't back, good news finally, despite the rattling.


Photo courtesy of Jon Price

The road section back to service was about 40 miles, and over an hour, so we decided what to do; we abandoned the original plan to change the oil and nick the struts from the recce car, and instead to try to fix the top mount, even if it was a bodge. Time for some fruit, a drink and some chocolate as well as a drink for the car on the way back. Coming into service, we got stuck in the wrong queue (as we'd lost a couple of 'places' due to the fuel stop), but got that sorted out and booked in, after being interviewed by a lovely young woman and finally finding out that we were still beating SD Roy, which was great, great news - our times had been good enough to open up a decent gap, and all things considered I think this is good work - the MG is a newer, more powerful car, so we'd done well.

Into service, and another bit of good news; it was just the strut-top nut that was loose - a quick zip up with a wheel nut gone left us with a perfect front end, and not a lot else to do on the car, other than discover that the front crossmember was shifted back a bit, and the radiator bottom mounts had broken, but it was all still there and probably from the "jump" in the Walters Arena where we'd landed heavily, so we left it on the list for the evening service.

The road section to Crychan 2 went much quicker this time, I decided to go as fast as legally possible on the motorway and A roads to get there in time, and this time due to the lack of town traffic, we got there 20 minutes early, so had a time to see some quicker cars go through (and one driver nearly run his nav over as he was reversing!), and get everything set for the stage - this would be good, and the first semi-dark stage, so I'd need to get on with it, and thankfully did so! A few half-spins and a bit of hesitation here and there didn't help, but we got caught by 3 cars, two Evos and an ST. I can't believe how quick the Evos are in a straight line - it is unreal; on each time we got caught, they'd appear at a corner in my mirrors and 200 yards later be right behind us; the traction and power is in a different universe to my car, and I guess that explains a lot. Plus these people can really drive! The ST caught us in a more "normal" manner, but still didn't hang about, but each time we got out the way relatively quickly, and I don't think it affected either of us too badly. What was affecting me quite badly was that the steering wheel had started to come loose! It started as a small rattle at the start of the stage, but by the end there was quite a bit of play at the rim, and I was glad it hadn't come off!

Next up, Epynt 2, by this time it was dark, and first thing was to do the bolts up on the steering wheel, no problem once I'd found the allen key, and off we went, this time giving it some beans from the start, so there were no repeats of the overshoots of earlier, and it was going well until we got to the tarmac, when the throttle didn't seem to be closing fully. By the time we reached the long road at the top of the stage, it was on full throttle all the time, and I had to brake in gear to get round the corner as I didn't want to blow the engine up, but on gravel this was a recipe for disaster. Now I'd imagine there are people who are reading this who would think "just crack on", or whatever, but my technique on gravel clearly isn't good enough, and as the car goes so well it meant I had a real struggle to get the car round, and there were two times where I got it totally wrong and nearly headed off the stage and indeed off a drop. I got to the end losing loads of time (and getting in people's way, sorry Mandy about that), and at the stop line had to kill the engine. Rolled down the hill, and had a look, but eventually found out that the throttle body was jamming open, and there was no way to stop it - it wouldn't free up, and taking it apart would have been game over for the car, for sure. But most annoyingly it wouldn't re-start; it's always been picky about start up (no throttle, then a quick stab once it fires up), and it wouldn't go at all. We were there for 40 minutes trying to sort it, but nothing doing, and that was that; the course closing car passed us and we handed our paperwork in as we had no usable spare for it, so no SuperRally for Sunday.

To say I was devastated by this is an understatement - I've spent 3 months of every spare hour working on the car to get it ready, and it was finally looking like it was all going to pay off, and then suddenly, it was game over. I am not ashamed to admit that I cried for a bit, but thankfully not only is Paul a good friend and a good navigator, he is also the most positive person I know. Not in an annoying bull-crap "way hey" way, but he's immensely pragmatic. We were currently stuck in Epynt, miles away from the twins and unable to get back, and it was a miserable cold wet December night. Getting back to service would be a victory now, and we finally got the car going by bump-starting it and having it run flat out everywhere, and stopping the engine on the brakes. At any junction where we HAD to stop (there were 3) I had to turn the ignition on and off to stop the engine blowing itself up, but after nearly an hour we made it back to service, having told everyone what was going on and so on. Got the car to the trailer park, got the van loaded up, and got the car loaded up, and went back to the house.

So, WRGB 2007 - success or failure?

Oddly, I think a success. We did two of the three days of stages, and despite very little driving this year, have both got better at what we do. I've nearly single-handedly built a car that went well and handled like a dream, and our retirement wasn't for want of trying and ultimately came down to a freak failure which I had no way of fixing. I'll be honest, if I'd not been with Paul, I'd probably have been beating myself up about it still, but I'm not - as he said, no-one died, the car isn't wrecked, and we're not "stuck in some shitty forest in the pouring rain with a car off the road waiting to be picked up". Very true.

Sunday, cleared up, thanked the twins for their ever-fantastic help, and came home. The recce car still runs OK, despite having been hammered to death, had its exhaust nicked and beaten up underneath enough to knacker the handbrake cables. And I have to take it to work tomorrow.

So, thanks to anyone who's read all this, and thanks to each and every one who's given us support over the last week, it's really appreciated. I know we're just messing about in a very expensive sport for the big boys, but I always thought rallying should be about real cars that are affordable, not £200k "standard" cars, etc. Thanks to the twins for their support, company and help, and to Paul for being a class act and making the week fly by.

The Felicia's homologation runs out at the end of next year. Wales Rally GB 2008 is a possibility, and I'd really like to do it, but I'd need to do it with more spares and as much duplication as possible to avoid another "£10 retirement". And get a few events in as practice beforehand.

After not a lot of sleep (woke up at 4:30, and didn't get a lot after that), we headed off to service, got there just after the top kiddies were leaving (saw Petter Solberg drive by), and got everything ready to go, again with various things that we'd forgotten to do, such as charger for the tracker that Paul is using (Memory Map), harness adjustments, tool bag, etc., etc and then it was nearly time to go - a couple of hours flies by when you're panicking! Just had time to get a hot dog in, and saw Tony "everywhere" Jardine in the loos, and then off we went. Trundled off to the start, and went through the fun of tyre marking, which is always a pain when you've got two and have to get them out to mark them. In the pouring rain. And off to Stage 1, Port Talbot. We got there in good time, and found a huge queue in the dense fog. And with good reason - the stage had been stopped due to a car hitting a spectator (although there was the usual chinese whispers routine as we heard this that and the other had happened). Behind us was the BF Goodridge tyre techs, taking the temperature of the ground, etc. Which reminded me to check (and reduce) my tyre pressures, so there would be some hope of getting through the next stage. We found out there was a 3-minute gap to the Land Rovers, which while not ideal at least meant some chance of getting a decent run in before being swamped. And eventually had to book in at SS1, and then turn round and run through non-competitively from a junction half way through to the next stage. During this run, I noticed a horrible rattle from the front end, due to low speed, lack of revs and no helmet, and once we got to the end (with several cars off here and there) we took a look and found that it was the spherical top mounts, so hopefully they'd just rattle and not break up (they were brand new, after all), and headed off for SS2, Resolfen. Due to the break from the stoppage, there was another delay while the course was re-checked, and then finally WRGB 2007 actually started for us. It was quite foggy and very slippy, and there were quite a few places where it was difficult to see more than 50 yards in front of the car - oddly it was the open spaces where the fog was, and between the trees it was clearer. The stage was very, VERY rough, and there were quite a few "OOOOH" moments where we hit things and got away with it, but the car wasn't running well - it wouldn't rev out above 6k, meaning it was a bit gutless, but I think this was from it having sat so long in various queues, and it got better as we got on. I took the corner where we damaged the wheel very carefully, and then got caught by the lead Land Rover, and let him pass. And then BANG BANG BANG.... just like last year, another damaged wheel. However, we were going OK and there was nowhere to stop, so I thought I'd roll the dice and keep going rather than lose 5 minutes changing it in the middle of the stage, 'cos I figured that steel would win against aluminium, and the noise got less and less as we went on, so it seemed to be paying off. The latter part of the stage went well, relatively speaking, and we seemed to put in a decent time, beating a few people on the board at the end, which was a real boost. By the time of the road section the knocking noise was almost gone, so I though it best to leave it on for the next stage.

Stage 3 was Rheola, and again it was wet and foggy, with patches of near zero visibility, and it was either hideously rough or treacherously slippy - all the points where we'd marked "hole", "rough" or "slippy" were 10 times as much, but it was good to finally be giving it some beans, and the car was running a bit better, but mostly 2nd and 3rd gear, as the engine runs high enough for it to be fun. The intercom had given up, so Paul was just saying the calls loudly and I could hear him just fine. The jump in the arena section was quite a surprise, as I'd not noted how sharp it was and did a bit too quickly and came down with a bang. Again we got caught fairly quickly by the first Land Rover but the second one didn't catch us until just after the flying finish.

The road section was a breeze, with the usual chocolate and a banana, plus some nice water from the quality Tesco water bottles. Service was fairly simple, 'cos the car was actually all OK. Didn't change tyres or anything, just put the light pod on, as it was chucking it down and there seemed no point in changing things just for the sake of it. And off we went to Stage 4, which was the first re-run of Port Talbot. We dived in for petrol (having been cut up by someone who was determined to get to the petrol before us, so thanks for that), and found several others with us, which was a surprise. What was more of a surprise was that the M4 was solid with traffic due to an accident (well, 2), meaning that we were very, VERY late to the stage, and ended up running it non-competitively, which wasn't great, but it was incredibly foggy and dark, which isn't a good combination. What's a very bad combination is being told that you're short-cutting part of the stage and not being told what you're missing out, and having your section time reduced by 15 minutes. And then to compound this, not being directed by marshals at "new" junctions on stage, meaning that you get lost, and also end up in amongst the land rovers (who were directed correctly by the marshals, making up 5 minutes or more as a result). This meant that the rest of the stage and then the road section had to be driven very quickly, which I really don't think is a good way to carry on. It's also not good having to do this in bad conditions with no notes, and there were several hard hits in ruts and so on where it would have been easy to break the car and be out of the event. We arrived late at SS5 only to find that it, too, would be run in the same way, although the re-direction was much, MUCH better done, clearly explained and very nicely indicated by the marshals meaning it was no problem. What was a problem, though, was the time - again 15 minutes had been removed from the time, and we were not hanging about, and yet still we didn't make it to the regroup control in time; the problem with this is that we have no idea whether we have to keep to the times or not, and I'm surprised no-one had an accident as a result. Another problem was that we saw several foreign crews' cars on the stage having broken down or crashed earlier, with people still in the car and no SOS or OK board out; we stopped for each of them to be told they were OK, but they should have put the sign out. All the UK crews we saw were doing it right, and it was a pity to see Jamie Smith out.

Another short road section to SS6, and this was actually being run, but we were in the middle of the Land Rovers, which was 'interesting', but the stage was quite treacherous - much more damage to it than before, but also more slippy as well, and the fog was very patchy - it was either not there at all, or solid with almost zero visibility. That made it very hairy as you'd suddenly see nothing and then see OK again. Despite the rain and the cold and the late hour, there were still plenty of people about on the stage, some waving us on, and the stage went OK where the visibility was good, but towards the end, disaster struck - suddenly the car got very, very loud, and I suspected a broken exhaust. However, it's probably not that much louder than many people's cars, and we carried on; we got caught by one Land Rover, but no-one else; the end of the stage went fairly well so I wasn't too displeased, especially given the horrible state of the stage - in places it was more like being on the moon than anything else. Got to the end of the stage OK, and then a loud road section including a stop for fuel and to discover that the tailpipe was missing - the horrendous state of the stages had claimed part of the car, and unfortunately not one I have a spare of. We made it back into service in time, and while waiting to check in, traded horror stories with the others; quite a few had tales of crushed tanks, broken cars and horrendous damage (some of which we'd seen evidence of), and we checked in and then off to service, which was mostly routine - check levels, remove the lamp pod, check the wheels (the tyres had worn very little, surprisingly, so I've elected to leave them on for tomorrow morning), and to work out what to do with the exhaust. Although I still think it would pass noise test, I'm worried that we'll get stopped, and I'd be devastated as it's such a small thing - with a 2" piece of tube and a small silencer and 15 minutes with the welder, we'd be back in business, but I can't see that happening at the moment. We've mapped where all the local likely places are, so we'll be knocking on their doors early tomorrow morning as we've planned what to fit to the car, and we'll take it from there. There's only a 10-minute service on the car, so there's not a lot of time, but obviously we can work on the part away from the car, and have a good idea of what to fit. Hopefully it'll work out, but I have a feeling this could be game over. Disaster.

Today had two main objectives - firstly get the car scrutineered, and then get to the ceremonial start in Cardiff. However, before that we decided we'd go and see how it's done properly at shakedown, so we trundled off down there to see the Priority 1 drivers do their stuff, trekked up to the easiest corner to get to and then.... nothing! Saw a couple of people pop by, but time was getting tight so we decided to head off as the "Spectator Safety" car came round again telling people to keep back (while the marshals didn't do a lot!), and some photographer decided that he'd cut down about half a tree to get his shot rather than move. And then we saw that there were some big guns coming through so we headed back, and had Atkinson (mega-loud, and VERY close to a tree on the inside), Solberg, Pons, Hirvonen, Gronholm, Sordo and Loeb come by, but we had to head off to get the car ready for scrutineering, so off we went, and I fitted the WRC tracker (which again has been some cause of trouble as it's basically knackered, with every component looking like it's on its last legs), new steering wheel (lovely suede OMP number), and all the little things that I'd forgotten to do before scrutineering. And that took 2 hours, by which time I was a little worse for wear, and getting very worried about noise test (despite hearing the HUGE amount of noise that Atkinson et al put out), but it passed easily. On to scrutineering having picked Paul up, and in we went, weighing in at 982Kg, and then into actually being scrutineered, where the engine and chassis were sealed with FIA tags so we can't change into our identical car or rebuild the engine.... probably not an option for us - building one car has been difficult enough, let alone two!

Scrutineering went fine, with no problems, which is nice, and meant I could relax a bit; I also found out that you don't need a logbook for an international event (I found this out as I apologised for leaving it back in service and was told it was unneccesary). Handy. And back to service, we set up the EZ-UP tent, and then thought better of it after a short time as it was just a bit breezy and it was already showing signs of wanting to become airborne, so it went back in the van, along with everything else. All the other little things got done - nav lamp 2, cable ties for intercom wiring, just all sorts of little bits and pieces that you forget until it's nearly too late. The WRC tracker of woe was checked and works fine, and everything else seems to too. So we all came back to the house, ready for the ceremonial start tonight, having been texted our start times by rally control, and knowing that we need to be there 45 minutes before the start to avoid a £500 fine. However, I fancy getting down there a bit early and watching what's going on tonight, so I'll be setting out in a bit to see what's what. And to leave a bit of time spare in case there are .... issues.

Fortunately there were no issues tonight getting to the ceremonial start, aside from the fact that it was a 50k drive on a motorway which isn't that great in the rally car, and I missed the turning for the entrance meaning a long lap round the civic centre meaning I missed the start with Loeb crossing the line and loads of fireworks, but as it turns out I'd have missed them anyway as I was parked at the back of a massive queue of rally cars, obviously! I got out and had a wonder around, and felt privileged to be in the "elite" area where only marshals and competitors were allowed - all the spectators were on either side of the area where the cars were, with a ramp set up at the other end where the interviews, etc., were being held as people 'started' the event (although this isn't the real start). Most people were already there, but some turned up later, including a kangaroo-hopping Puma which didn't make it to the ramp, and quite a few cars in the 100s. And then the Land Rovers turned up. Now, if you've not been following this, let's just look at some of the specs: The Land Rovers have 250-odd horsepower, 12 inches of ground clearance and 4WD. I have maybe 80HP, 4" of clearance and 2WD. And yet they are running behind me on the road. Normally I wouldn't bitch about things as an event is happening, but as I've already said previously, this will mean that much of my attention will be behind me rather than in front, and this will not only wreck the event for me, but also is unsafe, in my opinion. This coupled with the fact that the first one's driver says he "doesn't give a s***", and that they aren't their cars, and that they have also "had to nudge" people who've been in front of them before has left me in no doubt that this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever encountered while rallying. If there isn't a sufficient gap to ensure that I don't meet them on stage, then there's a problem - in my opinion they should either be seeded in with the main field according to their stage times or not run anywhere near the rest of the field. I have mentioned this to the CLOs, who both took my points seriously, and I hope that this won't be the case, so I'll leave that there.

I spent a fair bit of time talking to people about the "£40 car", Skodas in general and so on, and also took the time to have some people in the car to have their pictures taken - some I did know, some I didn't, and enjoy a bit of attention before queueing up for the start ramp, and getting out and having our pictures taken, and even a short interview.



And then we drove off the ramp, and I was really, really pleased to see people wishing us good luck, etc. - I'd also like to thank everyone who commented that they read this blog - it means a lot, and in fact is the reason why I'm up typing this up instead of in bed when I should be, so I will have to keep this shorter than I would normally, and I'll post pictures for this later on.

Next it was back to service (another long drive on the M4 made shorter via the joy of iPod), to find a much fuller service area with a fair bit of activity, and then back to the house. Tomorrow it starts for real, and hopefully the car will keep going.



Some bad things have happened today, some good things too - the twins have turned up ready for servicing, which is great. The car behaved itself and seems to go OK once it's properly warmed up. Hopefully it'll all go OK tomorrow, but I'll know in 20 hours or so, I guess.

Before it does start, I'd just like to say one thing, a massive thank-you to someone. My Mum. Without her I wouldn't be doing this. I know everyone says stuff like this, but in this case it really is true. Whenever I've phoned from work with something to be bought or sorted out, she's done it. Whenever I've needed encouragement she's given it, and she's done many things on the car too - indeed she's helped fit gearboxes and even the engine into the current car. Which is quite something for a woman who's having her 70th birthday next March. So, thanks Mum. I hope it all pays off!

One final request - if anyone takes any pics of the car on stage, please mail them to djaychela@hotmail.com and put something like "stage 4 pics" in the title, if you're happy for me to post them here with an acknowledgement.

WRGB 2007 Day 3 - Recce Day 2

Today's schedule was a bit more demanding - first up, there was the only "new" stage of the event, Trawscoed (or "Trousers" in Paul-speak), which was run in reverse to last year's stage, meaning a totally new set of notes was needed. The stage is around 40 miles away from where we're staying, and opens at 7:30, meaning a 6:30 (or so) start to get there - when we arrived at 7:45, there was a reasonable queue, but we got going fairly quickly and made a full set of notes - the stage is around 30km long, and this meant around 25 pages of notes for us; the biggest contrast to last year's notes was that I now call out more corners than before - whereas last year I might call something as 300, I may now say 100 1L 200 or similar, giving more information, but meaning more writing for Paul. The stage itself was strangely familiar (in the same way when you find part of a route you've driven before and realise where you are), but more than anything else, slippy. With a capital S! Make no mistake, there will be shenanigans on Sunday for whoever is still running - if the rain that's been there all day keeps up until then, it will be as slick as hell, especially on the second run. Our second run was taken at higher speed, which went reasonably well - nothing too bad was wrong, just some re-calling of corners, mostly due to taking them slowly first time round because of traffic on the stage.

Next up, Brechfa, with an opportunity for a quick pic in the same place as last year....



The stage is a re-run of last year, but still a long stage, but one run was OK, taken at reasonable speed (and things must have improved since last year as I've had to be careful of the speed limit on most of the stages, whereas last year it was only on the long tarmac run on Epynt that it was a problem). This is a great stage, but again mega-slippy in places, and once more if we're running on Sunday then we'll have to be careful or it can get very messy very quickly. After seeing this and how the Loebs and Gronholms of this world go through there (and indeed most of the field), respect is due - I think this is one of the things that the TV coverage just doesn't get across any more, especially as WRC cars look so "tame" - they don't get out of shape despite going at amazing speed.

Now there was a long run to the two 'Army' stages - Epynt and Halfway, and after last year's problems on recce (where someone had a problem after meeting Mikko Hirvonen coming the other way on the wrong side of the road) I was taking it very easy when going through the villages, and good job too - several of the top crews were coming round corners taking a couple of feet off of our side of the road, which could have been "interesting". Anyway, we got to Epynt eventually (having run there with a couple of others who are way up the order), and set off round Epynt, which is quite an interesting stage as it combines fast, smooth gravel with a long tarmac road (where even we will hit 80+) and then a really twisty, hard, rocky section where a mistake could really cause trouble and the bottom of the car takes a lot of damage. The notes through this section weren't quite right, so we re-ran it, and found out that.... they still weren't right - odd as it went OK last year, but we've marked the dodgy bit and it can be done visually so it should be OK - the rest of the stage is fine. On, then, to Halfway, a stage that I loved last year, despite having 2 wheel changes AND bending the steering rack meaning the car was a nightmare to drive afterwards. And once more it didn't disappoint - there were some minor changes to be made (more detail added and a few things removed), and again this is a stage of great contrasts - the gravel section then turns to a really 'cresty' section where an error will result in the rally being over (there are large rocks on the insides and outsides, so care is a pre-requisite), and then to a faster, more open section where a quick car would be fantastic, but any error would be punished severely. There was a small error, and I loved the stage, so we re-ran that as well, and didn't quite fix the error, but it's in a "visual" place, so no problems there. A great experience, Halfway, and I hope that the extra detail and cautions on the surface changes will mean we can get through without problems.

On, then, to Cardiff, which is an hour's drive from Halfway, and we were reasonably up on our schedule, so we took the time to get a proper lunch (albeit late) and then to do the Millennium Stadium stage. Although this is the same as last year and indoors, I wanted to do it again but it did mean an hour's queue to run it, with the Felicia sat amongst all the "proper" recce cars.



It was worth the wait - it turns out the layout isn't identical (the position of the blocks is slightly different), but also the surface was wet so it was good to get an idea of the grip that's there; last year we were all squeals, whereas this year it just slid nicely and quietly. We ran with an Evo on each run (two cars went together on each run, and you got to do your second run straight after the first), and although we clearly couldn't have kept up, we didn't get totally lost, and second time through Paul timed it and we did a fair job, which is good. Plus I made a promise to the two women who were marshalling the stage start that I'd see them on Saturday, so I hope not to break that promise as then we'd still be doing....

While in Cardiff, Paul went to the newsagent to get a copy of Motorsports News, to see the supplement with the paper on WRGB. And we're featured in it - mostly because of the cheapness of R477 KRU, reason being that I paid £40 for the car, and MN found out that a single nut (track rod end nut) from Marcus Gronholm's car is the same price. James mailed me about this the other day and it gave me much pleasure to put things in that kind of context. It was also really nice to see some of my comments in print, and hopefully people who see us on the stages will have read some of this and take it into account when they see a "slow" Skoda after seeing the WRCs fly through the stages; after all, the entire car cost less than a front-running car's tyre budget for this event - the build was under £3,000, and a WRC is £500,000. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying I could do the same in a WRC car, clearly, but I could certainly go faster than I do at present, particularly if I wasn't thinking "if I stuff this, it'll take me a year's work to fix it". Ho hum!

Finally in Cardiff was administrative checks, which is just paperwork sort of stuff. Last year this worried me, but this year not at all - oddly there is less checking done here than at a club-level rally; proof of insurance wasn't even asked for which amazes me, particularly as I'd had the pleasure of getting my cover extended by Jayne Auden to cover me, and she'd even emailed me the cover note! Never mind, at least I'm captain legal!

So, that's most of the preparation done - the stages are all recce'd and noted, the recce car has some massive dents in the floor and the exhaust vibrates like a harley davidson where it rubs on the sumpguard and has about 3 kg of Welsh mud on it. The bar that holds the guard on is bent like a banana, but should be straight (the red line on the photo).



The wheels have an interesting "growth" of dried mud on.



Tomorrow, hopefully scrutineering will go OK, but first up, we're going to go to shakedown and see how the pros do it. Should be interesting!

Today was the first day of recce - if you don't know, that means driving the stages before the event, at "non-competetive" speeds and making notes of the stage turns and details so you can drive through them a lot faster, accurately and safely than if you were trying to do so without having pre-knowledge of them. Most rallies in the UK have pace notes provided by the organisers, but Rally GB has two days of "recce" where each driver gets to make their own notes. This has to be done in standard-looking cars (although some of the top boys are in essentially rally cars with full cages, etc), and many use hire cars - we saw several standard-looking cars today, and in my case it's using my standard Felicia, just fitted with a sumpguard and a bit of protection for the brake and fuel pipes underneath, and some forest tyres fitted to it. Most people's recce cars are worth more than my rally car cost (probably 3-4 times as much), so maybe that puts everything in perspective - if I had an Evo 9, I'd love to run it down the tracks, but I'd be gutted if it got as dented as the Fel did last year...

This year, the stages are mostly the same as last year - only Trawscoed is significantly different from last year (run in reverse) so this means that we needed to "refine" rather than start from scratch, which is a big bonus. Oddly the stages were split between "local" and Crychan, meaning a 40-mile drive for the second recce, but we got to the first stage just before it opened and found the usual queue, and surprisingly a comment of "well, you made it this far" from Mr. Kellitt.... Once we started up, two things became apparent - firstly that it's a LOT more slippery than last year, and secondly the notes really didn't need much work - Rheola was first to be done, and was just a case of adding in bits that had changed a little and getting the corners more accurate. After Paul's constant complaints about the "descriptive" notes, we've changed to numbers (1 fastest, 6 slowest), which has meant he had to re-write all the notes, and a few got changed in the process or we'd messed up, but mostly it went OK, and well enough to mean we wouldn't do the second run - it was quite tight and we'd also thought that being really tired for tomorrow would be a bad idea - reason being that driving the stage and calling every corner out is quite tiring mentally. One dodgy thing happened - we were in a bit of a "queue" of cars (I think the person about 6 in front was doing it for the first time judging by everyone else's speed and that we were keeping up) and the idiot in car 64 pushed his way past us and everyone else, without so much as a second's wait. Lovely. Anyway, we went off to Crychan, and it was much the same story there, only needing one run.

Next up was Resolven, which according to the books had changed quite significantly since last year, adding a section beforehand. The two year's maps said otherwise, and so did our memory, and it was really a case of two distances and one corner, then back on the old notes. Lovely - ahead of schedule by a great deal, and an easy day ahead, hopefully.

Last up - Port Talbot, which was the first stage we recce'd last year, and therefore the first one ever. And it showed - the distances were crazily wrong for most of it, and several sections were just rubbish, frankly, so we needed to take a second run at it and totally replace the first section and modify a few other bits - not ideal for the first stage of the event, but I think the second run was OK, so it should be fine.

By this time, it was about 2:50, so we'd done well - if we'd done every stage twice we'd have missed the second run on Port Talbot and therefore had all sorts of trouble, so it's all good. Apart from hitting a massive rock which dented the floor and sumpguard mounting and knocked my feet clear off the pedals, it all went OK, and the little Skoda has done OK. Paul's been using Memory Map to record our progress on the stages, so we can see where we've been and also the speed at any point - interestingly it's nearly been fast enough to finish the event on schedule, and Paul said it's a pity we can't use the recce car on the event as "at least it would finish". Hopefully R477 will prove us doubters both wrong and keep it all together, but there's always something, isn't there?

Here's the recce car, after a hard day's work...