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Right, the full run down on Bank Holiday Rallying
On Sunday me and Sair took the car to Scrutineering, which was not at the venue of Millbrook, but at an Industrial Estate near Flitwick. We drove “the Beast” there and she was faultless. We were one of only 3 cars to be DRIVEN to Scrutineering, mainly cos we’re only an hour away, but also cos the car is totally well behaved on the road. Some of the stuff we are competing against is monster tweaked, and you just can’t wear it out on doing 100 road miles for a safety check. So those were all on trailers. And there was some machines to behold. Subarus, and Evos, 6R4’s and Darrian T90’s….big dough guys, big dough.
All was well, although we didn’t have a First Aid kit. It occurred at this point that we were competing on a National Event, not just a club-mans rally, as we’ve never needed one before. Its then you feel the pressure, from a silly mistake, that you’ve never needed something as basic as a First Aid kit before….it all sinks in. This is quite a big eventIt’s gonna be good
Monday dawned and it was looking hot…we had wet tyres too, but 4 brand new Michelin dry tyres, N20 compound (quite soft) and some new rear camber on the rear wheels. That job was quite easy, simply some washers on the bottom link and the tops of the tyres now tilt in and the bottoms out….and do they ever!
Noise testing was done in the event area of Millbrook test centre. I’ve been here a lot, but for Dave it’s quite new. This is the most thorough set of tarmac roads of every incline and slope, with fast downhill’s, mammoth 1 in 1 climbs, blind crests and big drop offs…with HUGE ARMCO to rip your wings off. Some of the tighter turns have positive camber on their inside and others on the outside, so it’s a navigators heaven, trying to remember the positioning of the car after each terrifying blind crest and to prompt the driver on the next loop.
Each stage involves a MERGE and later a SPLIT where the cars often get onto the stage together, as we do two laps per stage. 8 stages in total, 70 miles and with as many as 10 cars out there at once. So, as we count down to take off, and give it hell up through the first 3 gears into a tight left, we spot a 205 Gti on its second lap where its gonna merge with us and with lots more inertia, and then its down to rapid decisions by the driver as to letting it go or jumping in front and risking a whack and a marshal’s flag. Plus me in my harness, strapped in real tight, trying to crane my neck to see behind us while Dave navigates the tight corners and trying to remember the instructions I gave him before I started looking behind for a car at the merge. And as with all rallying, there’s cars littered all over the place, from First Stage aggression, where the unsuspecting drivers have wiped out their multi thousand pound rally cars within 45 seconds of the start….and the PEBBLES….oh the pebbles….
Either side of the track’s are storm drains for rain water and these are filled with pebbles….well, not anymore they’re not! The buggers are all over the roads, literally like marbles, from rally cars clipping the apex of corners and spraying rocks everywhere. It’s devilishly dangerous on stage one.
And as for money….well….car 1 is an Impreza World Rally Car. Guess at a price. Go on. Well, rumour has it that Mr Fleck’s car is worth just shy of £500,000. That’s half a million pounds. He was 89 cars ahead of my £7500 monsterThe blokes we were parked next too in the Service (Dick Mauger, pronounced Major) blew his engine up on stage 2….£10,000 engine guys…..dead…..11 miles
On to the rally itself….no, hang on…lets talk power here.
I have 108 bhp at the fly wheel and a Quaiffe close ratio gearbox with a very very low final drive. Rev limiter is 6400 rpm (tho it READS at 6900)
Peugeot 205 Gti’s 1.6 are 115bhp as road cars, and these cars are running with no limiters and are going to 8000rpm when required. Exhausts/Cams etc bring the typical to 130bhp to 145 bhp
Nova Gte (same engine as mine) but on Throttle bodies and individual management systems are running about 150 bhp.
Civic VTECS are 160 bhp as road cars….so I have no idea what they do in the trim I saw. Guess at 175 bhp.
And by stage 4, we were 64th
We were seeded most of the time behind a Ford Ka Group N car. We start at 30 second intervals and on the 3rd and 4th stages we had caught the Ka by the last 3 corners. 7.3 miles per stage, and we made up 30 seconds. We were doing ok for a metric tonne car. But we were being passed by Escort BDA’s (2 litre rwd) like we were stood still.
On stage events of note: oh yeah…lots
On one part, flying down a tarmac strip at about 70 mph, I needed to call a ramp exit to the left, but was well and truly joggled and lost my place on the map from a tight corner and I failed to call it. Dave saw the line of cones blocking and directing us, and wrenched the car to the left and up what looked like a concrete service track (it was) and as we crested the little slope we were face to face with the SPLIT , which luckily I had already made a mental note of and I called “RIGHT, KEEP RIGHT” and as it turns out that was the way we were already ploughing
One the third stage, after a quick start, we went up a “one in one” ramp and over a 45 degree left to drop back down a “one in one” and then into a medium 90 right with positive camber…..it felt too slow to me, so on the second lap, I called it “flat up to the crest and just lift at the top”, while directing Dave to the far right of the “up ramp” and shouting for him to cut the left corner real tight for a fast straight line….he did it all with aplomb, but bloody hell, we were flying SO MUCH faster than the first time…..as we landed we drifted across the pebbles, and had the right side of the car on the grass, and as we dropped down the hill at 80 ish mph the ROAD SIGN that was on our side of the road loomed large and frikkin fast….he caught the car, and got us back onto the road, but we collected the edge of the sign, ripping into the windscreen pillar and cracking it across Dave’s vision, spraying him with glass…..the rear quarter just caught the post that supported the edge of the sign, and twisted the rear of our car back onto the track….
Its my job at this point to shout “just get on with it, don’t worry” as Dave is now sprayed with glass and thinking “we nearly died”. It was, after all, my car and my fault…..This kind of thing is so exciting that I fail to find words to explain it, BUT try it in your head…..up a 100 metre ramp, blind left 45 degree corner, and a drop, drift wide and see a sign post in your way, tug steering left and hard as you dare without losing grip and graze it and SEE the edge of a metal sign board hit the screen at head height….just AWESOME
Originally Posted by Advice Trinity by Knoxville
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