Driver : Dave Hemingway
Navigator : Simon Ashton

The weekend started off badly on Thursday when the car was delivered to Pud at Woodfield Garage for a quick once-over before the rally started on Friday. What was scheduled to be a spanner check and an oil change after a 500 mile running-in session turned out to be a gearbox rebuild and change.

Friday didn’t exactly go swimmingly either. At about the time we were due to set off to the start at Helmsley, I discovered an electrical fault which pointed quite firmly at the engine management computer. After removing the dashboard and revealing the nest of wires beneath, the fault was painstakingly traced and the errant yellow wire which seemed to be causing all the problems was found to be a bad connection on the back of a relay. A new connection and the refitting of the dashboard and we were on our way, a couple of hours late to the start of the rally.

With the car scrutineered and the paperwork sorted out, it wasn’t long before we were sitting on the start line of Stage 1 and the RAC Rally 2011 had started. We were once again entered into the Open Rally which runs alongside the Historic event. Our car doesn’t qualify to be an historic because it has a more modern Vauxhall engine fitted so we and a couple of dozen similar cars thrash it out for a separate trophy.

Stage 1 was a success and we had nailed our flag to the mast with the quickest stage time in the very slippery Duncombe Park. The second stage, however was a different story and we dropped half a minute jessying about on the very rough tracks of Dalby Forest dropping us down to third and bending the steering on a particularly large hole.

Back to Duncombe and we were well on the pace through the trees but as we hit the tarmac hairpin, all was not well. We had no drive too the rear wheels. I fished about through the gears but none would drive so we attempted to freewheel the mile or so out of stage. The last 400 yards was quite a steep uphill and we quickly ground to a halt on the grass. We jacked the back end up and discovered it was a broken halfshaft so radioed through to the service crew to make them aware.

We were dragged back to Helmsley by one of the marshals (Phil Worley. Cheers Phil) and then across the service area by a 4x4 we had commandeered and Pud, Stu and the gang set about swapping the halfshaft. They had already prepared a “halfshaft broken bit removal tool” by screwing a strong magnet onto the end of a sweeping brush and once the main part of the shaft was out, started fishing about for the stub which was stuck into the diff. No joy. There were loads of bits of steel and iron filings but the last couple of inches were firmly stuck into the diff. Without further ado, the casing was removed and the axle stripped, crownwheel and pinion removed along with the halfshaft stub. It was now discovered that some errant bits of halfshaft had got into the diff and chavelled the bearing away. Job number one would be to remove the old bearing which proved quite easy with the use of an angle grinder and a hammer and chisel but where would we get a new bearing in the middle of Duncombe Park at Midnight on a Friday. (It appears the answer to this would be to see Justin from JT Motorsport who was running Tim Pearcey’s car who had a box full of second hand ones and was quite happy to hand one over and wouldn’t take anything for it. Cheers Justin)

With a suitable kit of parts, Pud and Stu rebuilt the diff, refitted a good pair of shafts, the only thing that remained was to fill it with diff oil which was borrowed from the cheeky boys, Phil and Mick Squires. Bring on day 2.

We had effectively dropped ten minutes in the Super Rally rules by missing two stages out on Friday night so it was looking like an overall win was well off the cards. Martyn Hawkswell had moved into the lead and Andy Madge was in second and both were capable of setting similar stage times to us. They had to get through the rally unscathed however so, as they say, it aint over till the fat lady sings.

We bolted Friday’s wheels and tyres on and started Saturday the way we intended to carry on with a fastest stage time through Langdale but were only fourth through Gale Rigg, possibly due to a couple of overshoots. An overshoot on Duncombe Park 3 saw us drop a handful of seconds and Martin had a couple out of us on Duncombe 4 but back in Langdale we were 16 seconds quicker than anyone and had another handful back with a quickest through Gale Rigg. so were 10:30 off the lead as we headed out of Yorkshire but more remarkably we were up to ninth overall as we were now passing other cars slower cars and some who were experiencing difficulties.

We headed up to Croft where we faced two runs of a four mile stage on nice slippery tarmac. Someone must have cheated here by putting sticky tyres on or something as Martyn had almost half a minute out of us on the first run but levelled us on the second. In our defence, the rain had started to fall as we were lining up so he may have had a drier run, and we were still on the set of worn knobblies we started the event on almost 24 hours ago. They still had a bit of tread left so we decided we’d make them last the day out and headed out to Hamsterley.

I admit to driving like a poofter through Hamsterley and the balding tyres couldn’t have helped. We only dropped ten seconds but lost a whopping minute in Shepherdshield. We overnighted in Carlisle 12 minutes off the lead and had somehow managed to eek our way up to 7^th. The car was WOFTed, a broken leaf spring rerplaced, a dodgy windscreen wiper motor replaced with an even more dodgy one and we were away to the hotel for the night after a rather enjoyable 18 hours of rallying. The couple of pints in the bar were much appreciated by all. (WOFT is Water, oil, fuel, tyres, by the way. We were pushing the boat out and using another set of relatively new rubber)

The overnight re-seeding wasn’t kind to us. Although we were running in the correct position order, we were amongst the slower cars. Nige Barrett in the 1300 Micra moved over in the arrival at Ae to let us past and we followed a Mk1 Escort into stage. We’d had the hoof down quite heavily in the early parts of the stage and about half way through we had our minute man in our sights on the longer straights but he disappeared into a blizzard as we climbed up the dizzy heights of Whitefold Hill where in contrast to the snow free valleys below, we had been treated to a good couple of inches of snow. Despite being warned of the slippyness after junction 18, we fell off on an open 90 right before we actually caught our minute man half way to junction 20. We stayed in the ditch for an hour and were eventually put back on by spectators once enough had arrived to lift the front of the car out of the ditch. As we descended the hill, the snow cleared and we entertained the spectators with some very sideways action on the way out We were OTL by about 20 minutes so decided to head back to Dumfries and miss out Twiglees so we now had 20 minutes penalties. At service it was discovered that we had once again snapped the tailshaft of the gearbox so the whole box and propshaft was replaced with a standard unit and we headed out onto the Heathhall stage some fifteen minutes behind what we thought was the last competitor on the road. It was dusk but the spotlights were useless but we still posted the quickest stage time, just to let them know we were back.

We were effectively down to three gears as first was only useful for parking on steep hills and fifth wasn’t really suitable for the Scottish Forests in the snow and I’d also declared to Simon that the remainder of the rally should be considered fun only. We would back off on the straights, take absolutely no risks but would endeavour to go as sideways as possible wherever possible. Dropping the additional 10 minutes had dropped us down to 9^th overall but with 2 minutes to 8^th place 4 minutes to 7^th, 6 minutes to 5^th  8 minutes to 4^th and a whopping 10 minutes behind 3^rd.  We completed Ae2 with third place, about a minute down on the leaders but still eeking a bit of time out of the cars in front despite stopping to thank the lads who had pulled us out earlier and shout “we’ve been in that ditch” to the course car who was now occupying the spot we vacated an hour or so previously.

Back to Heathhall and we topped the leader board once more on the one mile stage and then out to Twiglees where we were third, still dropping time to the leaders but making time up on the lower runners.

The road section from Twiglees to Newcastleton was about thirty miles of sheet ice over a mountain and was “interesting”. The stage start was at the top of a hill and was freezing cold and icy. The rest of the stage sort of descended through the trees and the weather had obviously warmed up as it was quite wet rather than frozen. Again we were third and eked a little more out of our rivals.

A trip in to Carlisle for another service and we decided to stick with the same tyres as we’d only really done a half a day on them and when we returned from Newcastleton 2 we overnighted in 7^th place.

This time, the car needed only a minor service and we shod it with a new set of part worn boots and ventured to the bar, which was shut. Thank god for small mercies in the form of a slab of lager and Steve Carter’s hip flask.

Monday dawned cold and frosty and a glance into the distant Scottish hills told us that a sprinkling of snow could be on the cards. The Hakkas were readied. Two in the chase car and two in the Escort. We had until about ten miles from the stage to decide which tyres to run and made a last minute call in a small village to swap onto the snow tyres as an insurance policy really. We swapped the tyres in a couple of inches of slushy snow and continued behind Captain Barret who had done likewise. As we approached Kershopefoot we were greeted by a blizzard and the main roads had a covering of snow. Some spectators cars were stuck on the hill before the stage and some competitors were being towed up by 4x4s. We plodded steadily up the hill and got stuck when a car came skidding back down towards us and we had to take evasive action. We were pushed clear of the steep uphill hairpin and continued unassisted to the stage.

We arrived late at the stage but there was no rush, The course car had gone off (for the third time I understand) and was not clear of the stage yet. Some time later, the first of the historic cars ventured into the stage and 35 minutes later had cleared the 17 miles of snowy Kershope and it wasn’t long before the first of the main rally went in.

We were to start a minute behind Nige Barrett and were only 40 seconds adrift so if we caught him, we would wrestle sixth overall from him. Other numbers to muse over were that 4^th place was only five minutes in front and third was only nine. If any or all of these had turned up with no snow tyres, then we stood a chance of claiming some places back. To our disappointment but in line with our expectations, the decision had been made to cancel the second running of the stage so we were left with 17 miles of rallying left. We’d caught Nige after about three miles and he politely pulled over and let us pass. We were not pulling any trees up but were obviously making progress. I was short-shifting to keep traction and on a couple of occasions found myself in fifth. We caught our two and three minute men in the finish area and had set fastest Open rally time by over a minute; but more importantly, we had taken time out of everyone who was leading us. The only person that we had no chance of catching was Mick Smith in third who had a nine minute lead over us but he’d gone off in stage and was unable to regain the track. We’d actually managed to claw our way back to third!. Andy Madge remained second, a mere 18 minutes in front of us after a scare of spending six or so minutes in a ditch and Martyn maintained a comfortable seven minute gap over Andy to emerge a very worthy winner.

We used two front and four rear tyres all weekend plus put another 17 miles of wear on the snow tyres. We need a diff rebuild and a gearbox recondition but all in all we had a brilliant weekend. Thanks to all the lads in the service crew. Pud (and Stu on Friday) Rob in the barge, Steve and Coggs in the chase car and Guy and Mick on shopping duties and of course to Simon for pointing me in the right direction for almost four days and although he maintains that I never frighten him, he has admitted to “being a little concerned” at times in Kershope.

So, as we said following our woes on Friday night, it aint over till the fat lady sings!

Driver : Dave Hemingway
Navigator : Simon Ashton

Car 75: Sarah Jane
The New Escort

This rally started way back in April for me. I’d had the new shell sitting in the garage for almost a year and the current car was deteriorating fast. A series of minor indiscretions had left it quite tatty and she was well overdue a re-shell.

Pud and Ian Emerson started fabricating the shell, fitting the roll cage, 15 inch rear inner wheel arches, seam welding and repairing the very small amount of rot that the sand blaster had unearthed.

Paint took longer than expected and when the car returned it was absolutely pristine but September. Still two months.

Parts started getting bolted on and the money started running out. It was my intention to build the new car out of the spares package from the old car but it’s amazing what bits you need. How difficult can it be to obtain a steering wheel cowl?

The proposed engine was to be a 2.0 Pinto with a steel crank and rods, 205 block and a super doper head and cam fed by twin 48 Webers or Dellorto carbs. The block turned out to be cracked and the head was more expensive than anticipated and the price of a new set of carbs looked like someone’s telephone number so a last minute decision was made and an old Crossflow was purchased from Ebay. The plan was to bolt it straight in but on inspection, it wasn’t “as listed” so required a bit of a tart up and a new set of pistons. The result is a mighty fine 138 BHP fire breathing monster. (for the less technically minded reading this, that was an act of extreme sarcasm, a BDA or well tuned Vauxhall engine will be producing about twice that BHP figure)

The engine sparked in to life on the Monday before the rally and the car moved under her own steam on the Tuesday by which time she was treated to an MOT and an MSA logbook inspection. Total miles to date 45.

Wednesday saw the main running-in session which consisted of a drive to Motoscope where she was tuned to the magical 138.3 BHP figure and then further running-in was enjoyed on the way back. (total mileage now approaching 200 due to getting lost on the way to Northallerton)

Thursday saw some finishing off work in the shape of mudflap fitting and the re-wiring of the master switch so that it actually switched masterfully.

Come Friday, she was on the trailer and en-route to a very snowy Pickering showground.

THE RALLY

The service crew usually have a sly bet on which part of the car will be the first to suffer any form of damage but this year was special. The sweep was on how far the car would get, the lowest bet being “not even onto the trailer”. Absolutely no-one put their money on a finish. Bollocks boys!

Despite the car being built to Hysteric spec, the Hysteric Rally Car Register, in their wisdom, have decided to classify cars in International Homologated groups so they must appear as the works used to run them, “in period” which means that as the Ford works team never ran a 1600 Escort, mine is ineligible for historic motorsport. How the fek you can interpret that from the regs god only knows but that’s the rules.

Did I mention the snow yet. I assume everyone knows that the 2010 RAC was one of the snowiest on record and as we set off on a mild November morning in bright sunshine from West Yorkshire, we were already aware of road closures due to heavy snow in North Yorkshire. On the strength of this, the van was packed with Maxsport’s best 155 x 13 Hakkas all rimmed up on the RS alloys which had now been converted to gp 4 spec. Sure enough, as we passed York Racecourse there was a mild dusting which grew to a couple of inches at Barton Hill and we arrived at Pickering to greeting of about six inches of the stuff. (didn’t measure it, that’s what everyone said)

Friday 26 November Day 1

SS1 : Pickering Showground 1

Someone had used their brain here. A completely different stage with no artificial yumps, no watersplash, no fuss. Just a blast round some completely new tracks in the showground.

As we approached the start we realised that the intercom had stopped working so plugged into the backup and it all came to life. We sat on the start line contemplating the icy stage and the countdown started. A good luck shake of hands and we were away.

As we approached the first corner, a hairpin left around a pond; I realised there was very little light issuing from the new Crystal headlights so hit the high beam switch. The full beam came on without the spots. I then started waving frantically in the direction of the spot light switches and dislodged the fuse box cover which headed straight for the driver’s footwell; and when I eventually found the switches and the flood of light was released, it revealed that I’d left the braking a bit late for the spectator surrounded hairpin right. I wrestled the car round the corner and onto the straight then kept feeding it gears until it was time to start shedding speed for the next 90 right which despite being sheet ice went without a hitch, as did the next. The next corner was a 90 left back onto the old stage and this was completely overshot requiring a handbrake turn and a 90 right back onto track. Discretion being the better part of valour, the next corner into the flying finish was treated with much respect and we plodded over the line.

SS2 : Dalby 1

Despite there being almost a foot of snow in here, we set off like a scalded cat down the first straight in Dalby and it soon became evident why there was a big crowd there as we wrestled the car to a pace suitable for going round the corner. Bell’s bend had been cautioned to us and a throng of spectators greeted us. I was feeling smug as I’d not been caught out by the corner, arriving at a snails pace over the blind crest but as we hit the downhill we were sledging and the car accelerated into the snow on the outside of the bend where we had to claw out way back on. Down into the Woodyard and our minute man was still in there. Surely it can’t take a minute to get round the Woodyard? Sure enough after a few hundred yards we’d caught him and could see he was struggling with the conditions. He acknowledged our presence but there was nowhere to get off so unfortunately we had to follow him to the finish, by which time we had caught a further three cars, all five of us finishing the stage line astern.

A quick service and we were ready for stage three but at this point we were given some results which showed us to be leading the Open ally by some seven seconds. We were actually quickest on the showground by eleven seconds.

SS3 : Showground 2

A much better run this time and well prepared for it too. Slower by three seconds and we’d been demoted to second place by Matt Robinson in the Millington Escort.

SS4 : Dalby 2

It was interesting getting to this stage. We met the Kall Kwik competitors on their way out of the previous stage and we were on a single track road with passing places. Some cars were getting stuck on the way up to the stage. 

We managed to drop a minute in the arrival so had generated a gap to the car in front; but no need, he was off like a shot on some new snow tyres and we only took a handful of seconds out of him by the stage finish but we were about a minute quicker than the previous run through.

Back to the showground for a WOFT before the car was put to bed in the exhibition hall and we retired to our digs in Scarborough absolutely amazed to be leading overnight by a minute and 27 seconds.

Saturday 27 November: Day 2

SS5 and SS6 : Olivers Mount 1 and 2

We were expecting to get our hides spanked quite severely here but the weather was being kind to us. The stage was icy and had been shortened to an uphill drag only because of the treacherous condition of the steep downhill Mere Hairpin. Then it was straight  back round for another go at the same, but this time remembering that the slight right over the top of mountside could be taken flat if desired! We were quickest on both stages extending the lead another three seconds to Barry Wheeler in an Escort RS.

SS7 : Langdale

This was probably the deepest snow we’d seen to date and another shortened stage as the MOD had decided that rallying was too dangerous in these conditions and withdrawn the permission to exit the stage over their land at Fylingdales.

We were quickest through Langdale despite running first of the Open lot on the road and enduring fresher snow. I must say that the stages looked very pretty, if a little difficult to distinguish what was stage and what was scenery.

SS8 and SS9 : Olivers Mount 3 and 4

Wheeler and Robinson had both encountered problems so took Super Rally times in Oliver’s so it was a resurrection of previous years battles between us and Marcus Noble and his navigator, Brian Hodgson; with Phil Jobson slightly behind in third. The stage times reflected this with us leading, Marcus second and Phil third on both runs of The Mount.

The demise of Wheeler and Robinson meant that our lead had expanded vastly and we now had a 3 minute 47 second lead over Noble.

SS10 : Langdale 2

We topped the stage times by almost half a minute in here despite being stopped by the Stratos of Steve Perez as he attempted to regain the track after a visit to the scenery along the Earth Ride but we’d opened the lead to 4:11 and our gaster continued to be blabbered. Andy Madge was back on pace but an earlier setback had left him out of the running.

SS11 and SS11a : Hamsterley 1 and 2

Organising on the fly, Colin Heppenstall the rally manager had decided to add an extra stage at the last minute to compensate for lost mileage in Yorkshire. The stage was said to have eight inches of snow and was typically Keilder (despite not being in Keilder) with a domed shape to the road and deep ditches on either side, caution to be excercised in here.

Robinson was back in the rally and topped the stage times with us followed by Noble just a second apart on the first run. We topped the stage times by 40 seconds on the second run, Noble obviously encountered a delay and Robinson took a maximum.

The overall position was looking good as we had an almost five minute lead,

SS12 : Shepherdshield

Absolute disaster. We arrived in a slight flurry of snow and by the time we’d got our time and been rushed onto the start line, it was a complete whiteout. So bad that the tracks from the car who left the start a couple of minutes before us had completely snowed over and my dipped beam was proving useless. We struggled through and dropped around two minutes to Noble and Robinson who seemed to have had less troubled runs of the stage.

So we ended a very long and testing day 2 of the rally with a lead of 2:51 which is a fair margin but with two more days to go, by no means safe.

Sunday 28 November. Day 3

SS13 : Ae1

This was our worst nightmare really. The reason why we were doing so well (apart from being amazingly talented) was the fact that the lack of power we had was not really that much of a detriment in the slippy conditions. Ae had had an overnight dusting of snow and despite the surface being frozen, the grip was phenomenal. I’d made the mistake of leaving the Hakkas on where the Dunlop Knobblies would possibly have been the better choice and reduced the risk of punctures We were expexting to loose most of our lead in this stage alone. We were followed into the stage by Dave Greer in the Ascona 400 and I must admit to spending too much time looking in the mirrors for him. We also had a minor indescretion drifting wide on a left hander where the braking was left late and then further compromised by ice but luckily there was a small tree to prevent us rolling down the banking and out of the rally. Matt Robinson took well over a minute out of us but Noble only had 19 seconds so we were chuffed to monkeys with that.  We also found a set of timecards that we collected, delivered to their rightful owner and now have friends for life in the shape of Warren Philiskirk and Eurig Evans who’d had a puncture in stage and suffered all the disorganisation that goes with it, dropping the timecards from an incorrectly shut door after the control being one of the common mistakes.

SS14 : Twiglees 1

An inch of snow was said to have fallen in here but it was more slippy than white. Hakkas was the better choice in here but it was touch and go. I upped the pace a little and enjoyed the way the Escort handled in the conditions. We took fifth fastest stage time, over half a minute down on Robinson, Madge and Wheeler but most importantly, 44 seconds ahead of Noble. Our lead was back up to 3:16.

SS15 : Heathall 1

Not too much to go wrong in here as it’s only half a mile long. We’d bolted the knobblies on for the next run through Ae and it was quite slippery and we spun on the hairpin. We were 8^th quickest, only 5 off Robinson but 7 quicker than Noble.

SS16 : Ae 2

Now on Knobblies and with a new “wing man” in the shape of Philliskirk who had slotted into the gap between us and the chasing Noble. Warren saluting and clicking his heels as he reported for duty at the arrival. ( I hope no-one thinks we take this rallying seriously by the way?) This forest, on both runs had tested the performance of the car. The axle is obviously not suited to the 6500 rpm we were obtaining from the crossflow as the top speed we registered was 75mph. I think we had 116 on the same straight last year!. Keep feeding it gears and try not to slow for anything and the car was capable of pressing on quite admirably and we exited the stage having dropped only 37 seconds to Marcus.

Most impressed by our speed was our new wing man. He came to us after the stage and told us that he was worried for us. He was expecting to catch us quite early on in the 17 miles of Ae but it hadn’t happened. Approaching the end of the stage he said that he was getting worried as he hadn’t seen us anywhere and still couldn’t see us on the long straights and was quite relieved to see us sitting on the finish line when he got there, but absolutely amazed that we’d held him off for the whole stage. Thanks for the compliment, Warren. Much appreciated.

SS17 : Heathhall 2

Disappointed by our lack of talent on the previous run through here, we were determined to get it right this time; and so we did, setting the fastest time at 1:15 and eking six back from Noble.

SS18 : Twiglees 2

Still on the knobblies for this run meant that we could use more of the scenery than the previous run and despite dropping half a minute to Andy Madge who was on a charge, we gained half a minute from Noble. Night had fallen so the times and the temperatures weren’t as hot as the previous run.

Back to Carlisle for an unscheduled service halt as Newcastleton 1 had been cancelled due to the lack of emergency crew who were snowed-in somewhere north of Edinburgh. The re-arranged time schedule allowed the crews from Ae to install themselves in Newcastleton by the time we all arrived.

SS20 : Newcastleton 2

We’d arrived here with 3:26 cushion and it was now starting to look like we could pull this off. There was over 12 inches of snow in these forests so power was going to be no advantage but bravery was. I wasn’t planning to use bravery in here and hoped that no-one else was. It’s also worth noting that by this time, we had been told that tomorrow’s stages in Keilder were off and we had a five miler in Kershope that we were to use twice which had a similar 12 inches of snow to Newcastleton. I had 15 miles survive with a three and a half minute cushion.

Well anyway, we were fourth in here dropping 28 seconds to Marcus in the process so we went to bed with 2:58 lead.

Monday 29 November. Day 4

An oil leak had been discovered the previous night stemming from a stripped thread in the sump plug (well it was a shyte thread that was stripped when it was nipped up) so we spent some time trying to source one unsuccessfully so Pud decided to make one out of some toilet roll middles, a sheet of sticky back plastic and some rubber gloves, or so it seemed. A suspension bolt, nut from the spares box, five minutes with the mig and a tube of loktite and we were good to go. The car was left overnight and we oiled it up in the morning and headed out to Newcastleton.

Kershope 1 and 2

We entered the stage fairly well up the running order and the snow was still pretty fresh. Despite plodding round, we still managed to lose it on a downhill 30 left and drifted well into the undergrowth but the car miraculously scrabbled its way back on. We headed round for a second go not knowing what Marcus had done but we were aware that some of the hysterics had taken two minutes off us. Don’t panic.

Luckily, Marcus had decided that he was happy with second place and plodded round almost as casually as we dis taking 14 from us on the first run but dropping 20 to us on the second attempt.

Back to the holding control in Carlisle and we were hugged by Colin Heppenstall then shepherded into the winner’s convoy for the parade into Carlisle City Centre where Simon and myself were allowed to spray each other with the worlds finest champagne.

Roger Albert Clarke Open Rally 2010. First Overall.

Driver : Dave Hemingway
Navigator : Simon Ashton

Once again Simon and myself were to compete on the Open event of the RAC Rally. We had won this part of the event in 2008 so the pressure was really on. The car should have been re-shelled in 2008 ready for the event but as it turned out, that had never happened and we made the start in a car bearing quite considerable battle scars from the year’s previous incident; a roll on the Riponian back in March. It was slightly embarrassing presenting the car for scrutineering in such a state alongside all the other cars with immaculate paint jobs and straight panelling. The scrutineers obviously felt the same and spent a phenomenal amount of time trying to find a minor fault, eventually deciding on the HID lights which were later found to be acceptable.

Day 1

A half mile stage in the showground followed by an eight miler through Langdale then a return to the Showground stage before retiring for the night.

We must have been steady on SS1 as we were in 4thequal, five seconds down on Stuart Newby in a similar Escort, while Langdale proved troublesome for us, we just seemed to skate everywhere and dropped 30 seconds to the now charging Marcus Noble and a further 3 to Newby but took time out of the rest of the field elevating us to third. We were actually scared to death as we tiptoed through the stage passing 7 stricken cars on the way through.

Another steady run of the showground and a 9^th fastest stage time kept us in third place, over half a minute down on Noble and eleven down on Newby. Only three more days to go.

Day 2

Full of beans and with some super grippy tarmac tyres fitted, we headed off to Oliver’s Mount. We were expecting to lose quite a chunk of time on the four of today’s tarmac stages. Marcus has usually just driven away from us on the tarmac with his superior power but this time was to be different. A tidy but quick run at the first test saw us claw back six seconds of the lead and on the second run, we only dropped 3 seconds, each time whittling a bit from Newby which elevated us to second.

Into the woods and this would be where we started our fight back. We knew we would be quicker than Noble on the next two stages. Harwood dale was almost perfect so we were surprised to see that Marcus had taken two seconds from us. Langdale, following the previous evening’s mud bath was remarkably dry and we even threw dust up in a couple of places, we were absolutely flying and made virtually no mistakes. I think I uttered under my breath at the finish “Beat that Noble” so confident I was that our fight back had commenced, only to find ourselves another two seconds adrift but now quite confident that the gap behind us which stood at almost a minute was quite safe.

Back to Oliver’s Mount and all was quiet. A long line of cars was being frantically organised by the marshals and nothing moved except for the increasingly distant back of the queue. Darren Moon had gone off into the crowd was the story that was spreading and we knew immediately that another trip round Oliver’s was looking doubtful. Our thoughts were with Darren and Chris and the injured spectators (who hadn’t actually been hit but were injured whilst fleeing the stricken car as it crashed through the fence) as we headed to Harwood Dale once more.

Once again, we were apparently on the pace in Harwood Dale but once again we got our arses kicked by Marcus Noble. A further 8 seconds adrift we were 41 down and heading for Killer Kielder.

Perhaps if our big comeback hadn’t happened in Yorkshire, it was going to happen in Kielder. We filled up with Kick Energy and endured the 4 hour road section to Shepherdshield. We arrived at the last holding control before the Kielder stages and as we parked the car there was a funny squeaking coming from under the bonnet. Inspection found that the timing cover had come loose so it was to be removed. Closer inspection showed that it had spent some time running on the alloy can pulley and had worn the teeth down on the front half of the pulley. That was it. An engine that had been reliable for six years was going to let us down because of a 3mm fastening bolt on a timing pulley. Photographs were taken and texted about the country and the replies were numerous and identical. Park her up!

We towed the car back to Carlisle and a large crowd scratched heads simultaneously. A tour of the service area had already been conducted and no-one was carrying a spare cam pulley for a Vauxhall Engine. Plans were hatched to rob a 1300 Astra which may have a similar pulley, then adjust it by filing the teeth or splines off and sticking it bac together with eyelash adhesive and chewing gum. It was decided that unless we could get a vernier pulley identical to the one that came off, we would take it on the chin that we were out, so we went into Carlisle, had a few drinks and a meal. In the meantime, I called everyone in my phone book I knew who may have a cam pulley, posted a message on three rally forums and went to bed.

Day 3

We woke in good time to have breakfast and go to Ae Forest to do a bit of spectating. We had by this time missed four stages in Kielder and were on our way to watch the sixth. A post on the British Rally Forum read “Go to Gretna. Ask for Ivor” which we unfortunately didn’t trust as very sound advice so headed to a motorsport shop in Dumfries. This turned out to be a white elephant as it must have been closed for a decade so we waited for the motor factors to open to see what they had in stock.

Half way through breakfast, a text arrived from Roy Johansson. “I have a pair of pulleys but unfortunately in Dumfries” which would have been troublesome if we weren’t in Dumfries. I called him back immediately and after a minute of asking whether I knew any of the landmarks in Dumfries in order to find Roy’s house, he decided the best plan was to deliver them to the motor factors. Another five minutes later, we had two pulleys.

We set off back to Carlisle with our catch, a new cam belt and a set of big smiles when the phone rang. “I hear you are looking for a Vauxhall cam pulley?” It was Ivor from Gretna believe it or not. His son was on an oil rig in the North Sea, spotted the post, called his Dad and Ivor was now trying to find us with a belt and a pair of pulleys in the back of the car.

The car was mended and we tagged on the back of the rally at Heathhall where our re-opening gambit was to fire a fastest stage time in, followed by another one in Ae.

To compare the stage times on the rest of the rally would be unrealistic. By this time, Marcus Noble had a four and a half minute lead and there was a minute gap between all the chasing drivers so the battle could hardly be described as frantic. On our Achilles heal of a stage in Greystoke, we were 7 off Noble who is a local there and we dropped a mere two seconds to him on the second run through.

Day 4

Five stages around Kielder with about 40 miles of rallying was in store before lunch and we had our fair share of quickest stage times and we finished eighth from the depleted field of eight finishers, one hour and 38 seconds off the lead having incurred 6 lots of 10 minute penalties for missing stages under the super rally rules.

Hats off to Marcus Noble and Brian Hodgson who out paced us in Yorkshire and led a controlled rally from start to finish to win by a smidge over 4 minutes from Nigel Barber.

We are one of six crews to start all six RAC rallies and as far as I know, only two have completed them all.

Here’s to next year.

Harold Palin Memorial Rally
Manby Motorplex

Driver : Dave Hemingway
Navigator : Jim Plevey
 

Once again I had the pleasure of Jim sitting alongside and offering information and encouragement for this event.

I think Jim was a little bit confused in his preparation for the event as he’d borrowed a caravan equipped with folding chairs, sun loungers, packed the barbeque and a telly so that we could sit out into the night drinking beer. The sun disappeared well before we arrived at 7pm, scrutineering and noise had closed and the service area was silent and deserted apart from the faint glimmer of lights in the various motorhomes and the buzz of a couple of generators.

“It’s not like it used to be, this rally” commented Jim. His wife was huddled in the corner of the caravan with the kids, trying to soak up whatever heat was being emitted from the struggling heating system as the clear skies started to cast frost onto the ground outside. Everyone used to come down the night before and we’d stay up drinking until the early hours in the evening sun. It used to be a right larff.

“Oh, that’ll be the Opposite Lock Rally in July you’re confusing it with Jim”

“Bugger”

Dawn broke and the other competitors started to arrive. Noise test and scrutineering passed and we readied ourselves for the start. Super soft slicks fitted from the off, we were ready to do battle as tarmac Jessies once more.

SS1
Last time out, it was a steady start with 20th overall and less fast boys at the pointy end of the field so this time we were pleased with 11th Overall but were dragging our heels behing Pud in the Astre for 2wd honours as he’d had 5 seconds out of us and was lying 6th.

SS2 was more of the same. Tried our pants off and took 16 seconds off the first run. A 12th overall stage time had us second 2wd dropping 8 to Pud but we retained our 11th overall.

SS3 and SS4, we were dropping between 5 and 10 seconds to the the flying Astra of Pud and Simon Ashton but pulling out about the same over the beying pack of Dave Patrick in the Jag powered Manta and Graham Hargreaves in the Vauxhall powered, Ford running geared Toyota.

SS5 saw us escalated into the top 10 at the demise of Pud’s Astra as a driveshaft failed. We opened up a further lead on the remaining 2wds and had settled into a three way battle for 7th place with Dave Campling and Andy Varley, both driving Escort Cosworths, our 5th fastest stage time on Stage 6 standing us in good stead and elevating us to 9th and well in with a shout of 7th with a bit of hard driving.
SS7 and 8 were tightly fought but Campling took 13 from us whilst Varley only had three.

A coming together on SS9 with one of the leading cars who thought it was fair game to ram into us on a hairpin cost valuable time and ruined any chance we had of overhauling the Cozzies but oh how we laughed as we looked behind to see the front bumper become detached from the Scooby and disappear under the car on the next straight. He once again aimed for me on the next hairpin but with an obviously smaller budget and a whole lot more respect for other competitors, I politely moved over and let him past. He was waiting for me at the stage finish blaming me for the incident but later came over to apologise as he thought he had been really stupid to think that a class leading RWD car would allow him past halfway through a hairpin. The loss of 5 to Varley and 8 to Campling seemed insurmountable so a steady (ish) plod to the finish on the final stage meant Hargreaves took the fastest 2wd stage time which up to now had always gone Wakefield’s way, and clawed 2 seconds of the minute and a half class lead back. Patrick was last years winner and had not disgraced himself and the honour of running with the number 1 on the door, taking second 2wd and 12th overall.

Our 9th overall and first in class was hailed as quite a drive if a little disappointing after the last visit to Manby produced a second overall.

Driver : Dave Hemingway
Navigator : Simon Ashton

This is the fifth running of the Roger Albert Clark Rally and this time we had the honour of being seeded first in the Open Rally and sported number 45 on the door, and with Simon Ashton once again sitting alongside, ably calling from the maps, we were in for a good doo.

Mad Mick Jones was a late entry and got to run in front of us and another well known name, Phil Burton languished behind, his talent being legendary but his form not. Other entries to note were Brian Stonemad Lawlor, with whom we had quite a battle last year before the expiry of my gearbox in Greystoke. We were leading by almost half a minute before the problems and he opened up a sizeable lead before the finish. How much of the sizeable lead was due to the gearbox and how much was due to driving, we were probably going to find out this year.

Once again, we would be running on second hand tyres. The ones used by Steve Bannister on his popular victory in last year’s event.

Day 1

Temple Newsam
Friday consisted of noise test, scrutineering, signing on and a bit of rallying. Two runs of a stage in Temple Newsam, part of which was floodlit and was to form a perfect introduction to the cars for the throng of spectators.

Dave had got other ideas. With a tip off that the stage was going to be super snotty (I didn’t need much help, three weeks of rain leading up to the event on muddy farm tracks and all that) I was going to play my joker. Brand new (to me) front tyres on the rear! That would help me get round the tarmac hairpin and provide a little more bite in the mud. Well that was the idea anyway.

The event was to be re-seeded at the end of each leg so if my plan worked, I could be first on the road through Yorkshire and Greystoke the following day, and what an advantage that would be, especially on home turf. We had opted for a number of accompaniments to brighten the car up on the night stages including an aerial which cycled through red, green and blue lights and a Knight Rider style led light set across the rear bumper.

A couple of things didn’t go exactly to plan. We did open up a 6 second lead at the head of the Open Rally field but were firmly drubbed by a certain Mr David Stokes and also a flying Porsche in the hands of Tim Mason. Still, third wasn’t a bad position to be lying after the first day, a couple of seconds up on Eason, 5 to Malcolm Wilson and 7 to Steve Perez. The second thing that didn’t go to plan was that they somehow forgot to re-seed so we were to restart 30th on the road same as the first day.

Day 2

I was under no delusions that we would be able to maintain the lead we had enjoyed at the end of the first day but thought we’d give it a good go. Again, the plan was to try to make the best possible advantage we could of our knowledge of Langdale, which if I’m honest, the way we were running it, wasn’t very much.

Temple Newsam
By the end of the days second running of Temple Newsam, Phil Burton had passed us and Mad Mick was only a couple back. Stonemad and Marcus Noble were only 10 behind us and we weren’t running in the high end of the field.

Langdale 1 : SS5
Rally starts proper. The prologue out of the way, this is where we would find who the big boys were. Mad Mick showed his true colours and sprinted off, followed closely by Burton, Stonemad was 14 down on Burton and I was 14 down on him. That wasn’t in the script.

Harwood Dale 1 : SS6
Only a hand full of seconds separated everyone in here but the order was the same, each opening up the gap by a second here and there. The pace seemed to have been established.

Olivers Mount 1 and 2 : SS7and 8
This is where we learned who the tarmac Jessies were, and it wasn’t us. Marcus set the fastest stage time and had 12 from us, Jones and Burton were next.

Mad Mick took ss8 by a sliver from Marcus and we had our second spin. Lawlor and Jobson were also on a charge.

Langdale 2 : SS 9
This time Burton had the measure of Jones and we’d manage to stem the attack from Lawlor, allowing him only a second on this occasion. Noble proved that his speciality was tarmac and dropped 30 to us. A pecking order had been established and we needed to up our game if we were in with a shout of sticking with Stonemad Lawlor.

Harwood Dale 2 : SS10
Up our game we did and we took a massive 4 seconds from Lawlor in this stage. Note at this stage, we are still trying to establish a pecking order and we’re half way through day 2 and 10 stages into the rally, and as Simon also noted at this time, only another 9 hours of rallying before we were due into the final service of the day. Why did I only buy 2 crates of Red Bull

Olivers 3 and 4 : SS 11 and 12
Marcus again took time out of us on the tar and Mad Mick continued on his merry way but there was no sight of Burton. We were now fighting for second with Lawlor and Noble. Lawlor had a second from us on SS11 and noble had 5, on SS12 Marcus helped himself to another 4 while Lawlor must have suffered a spin to drop 5.

Greystoke 1 and 2 : SS 13 and 14
It was looking like our first time in a dry Greystoke. I could well get to like this stage and am hoping to do the Greystoke stages next year but we traditionally lose loads of time in here. And so as not to break with tradition, we lost over 20 seconds to both Lawlor and Noble on the first test.. The next run was much improved but still shyte, Noble taking 13 seconds from us, a new name, Stewart Newby also beat us but the stage proved to be the demise of Stonemad. An accident forced them from the event with a broken track control arm and an early ferry home resulted.

If you’ve been doing the maths. That means we were now second overall but with the narrowest of margins over the chasing Marcus Noble. Mick Jones had what can only be described as a comfortable lead, quickest in the field and still enough time for a puncture. We headed for Carlisle, put the car to bed and followed it at around 1am.

Day 3

Ae 1 : SS14
Another stage where we’ve historically been quite slow but this year would be different, we hoped. We attacked from the word go and didn’t adopt RAC mode. That means you think “well I’ve got this far, it’d be a shame to spoil it all now”.

We were about two miles from the end of the stage when the back end started to wander aimlessly about and I felt sure we had a puncture, I persevered and the problem got worse. I enquired as to how far still to go and we were down to a mile, I pressed on. The problem seemed to lessen and left me confused towards the problem. The stop line marshal confirmed a puncture which we changed after the stage and the photos proved that the tyre had been completely off the rim at one stage but it had re-seated itself in time for the finish. Strange.

We felt sure we would be fighting back from third but found we had opened our lead for second place by a further 16 seconds.

Heath Hall 1 : SS 16
About a mile with a water splash. Mad Mick took another second and we gained another over Noble. Hardly worth putting the gloves on for but it gave the service crew a chance to see the car in action.

Ae 2 : SS17
Mick Jones once again proved his calibre and Phil Burton was back on the leader board, albeit half an hour out of contention after the previous day’s dramas. We took another 14 from Marcus so were opening up a bit of a cushion.

Heath Hall 2 : SS18
Again, a couple lost to Mick and a couple gained over Marcus as we headed off deeper into Scotland

Twiglees 1 : SS 19
At the arrival of Twiglees, we were chewing the fat with a few of the historic crews. Phil Collins and Nicky Grist, Phil and Mick Squires, Will Onions (which is actually pronounced Onions and not O’nions like we’ve heard a few times) Charlie Taylor to mention a few. Nicky and Phil in particular were giddy as school kids as they clocked McCormack and then Wilson round the corner a couple of miles into the stage, the latter having already dropped a couple of seconds, as had Stokes and Lepley. The tales being told were of Malcolm Wilson hiding until McCormack had gone past then rushing to the ATC at the very last minute so as to force young Marty in front. Malcolm’s pace couldn’t match McCormack so he thought he’d try to rattle him in another way. Our performance was acceptable although it felt quite pedestrian, particularly after being first on the scene of Phil and Nicky’s big accident a few miles into the stage.

Castle O’er : SS20
Nothing to report in here. A steady run through to drop a further 20 to Mad Mick and gain 6 on Marcus

Craik 1 : SS21
There was much trepidation about this stage. At the start everyone was discussing how treacherous it was and how it claimed 20 crews the last time it was used on the RAC in 1990 something. Rumours were that the wrecking crew were also up to their tricks in here as well. Caution was the order of the day and we backed off excessively where we saw a group of spectators. We usually put on a show where we see a group of spectators. We lost a bundle of time to Mad Mick and came home in the laughing gang as it were. Only 2 seconds split the next four cars as we set an equal time to Noble. Up the front of the Hysterical field, Malcolm Wilson’s trick had seemed to pay off. Marty had reduced what was once a 1:42 deficit to under a minute and was charging hard when he hurled it at the scenery on a tricky 90 right near to the end of the stage, leaving Wilson with a quite healthy 3 minute lead over David Stokes.

Newcastleton 1 : SS22
Newcastleton is actually run in Kershope Forest but although the venue is the same, the stage certainly isn’t. Kershope is fast and flowing and Newcastleton is tight and nadgery. We’d given up hope of trying to catch Mad Mick once we’d left the comfort of Temple Newsam but we were still trying to out drag Marcus for second and the additional quarter of a minute we gained in here had us a mere 1:15 ahead. Fourth place was another five and a half minutes further adrift so we remained in the two horse race for second place.

Twiglees 2 : SS23
Night had fallen upon us for the third time in the rally as we entered Twiglees for the second run. Jessiness prevailed and a new name appeared on stage times in front of us in the form of Stuart Newby. The win was taken from Mad Mick by a handful of seconds by Phil Burton who had rejoined the event and a further four seconds were taken from Marcus who reported brake problems.

Castle O’er : SS24
Overcoming Jessy mode to an extent, I think the carrots must have been working a little bit as we took second fastest to Burton on this stage. As we arrived at the stage finish, the butterflies started to jump up and down inside my belly. Simon was busy sorting out the times with the marshals whilst I tried to focus on the black Escort in front of me. It was car 56, Mick Jones.

He’d seen us arrive at the finish and had begun making his way towards us. We drew level and I opened the door.
“What’s up?” I enquired.
“Diff” Mick retorted.
“What? Broken!” I was shocked. “Can’t you mend it?” I quizzed. “You could still beat us with Super-Rally, you could at least have a go”
Deep inside I was wanting him to put it on the trailer and not try, but the sportsman inside me didn’t want to take the lead at someone else’s expense. And over the last couple of days, I’d actually grown to like the big headed arrogant Welsh git that I had never even met and had made absolutely the wrong impression of.
“We haven’t got a spare” he said “It’s all yours now. Keep it tidy and we’ll see you in Carlisle”

Shit, we were leading!

Craik 2 : SS25
Phil Burton was on a charge. He still had 35 minutes to make up so we were quite safe but he’d just had half a minute in there. The next four were Phil Jobson 9:01, Us 9:02, Stuart Newby 9:03 and Andy Madge 9:04. All excercising the same amount of caution in the circumstances with Marcus clocking in at 9:21 and obviously suffering some mechanical ailment.

Newcastleton 2 : SS26
We took second through here dropping the best part of a minute to Burton but taking almost the same from Noble who was demonstrating big problems.

We headed to service and then off to bed where we would attempt to get some sleep. A couple of cans of Magners did the trick for a while but once they’d worn off, some heavy pacing of the travelodge floor was called for.

Day 4

I didn’t consider the 2:41 lead to be very safe. If all went well, it shouldn’t be a problem. I had been told that Marcus had been suffering mechanical problems. That he’d had no brakes for most of the day before. And that he’d be on a charge to catch us. I felt that we could fend him off in a straight fight but we weren’t allowed any problems. Three minutes buys you a puncture but we were in unknown territory.

Falstone : SS27
We had actually driven for the first three stages of the final day before we discovered that Marcus had gone off in Falstone. Perhaps he was trying to overcome the lead we had or perhaps he’d backed off a little too much and lost concentration. Hopefully I’ll be able to read his report or meet up next year and compare stories. All we knew was that we weren’t supposed to make any mistakes or get any punctures but must press on regardless. Which we did. We still dropped time to Burton and recorded second quickest stage time but the cars behind were closer than normal. Onward

Bewshaugh : SS28
We’d gained an extra 9 minutes in SS26 and another 11 seconds in here. The pace must have been OK.

Broomylinn : SS29
Another half a minute lost to Burton and a handful gained over the beying pack. We were still pressing on un-necessarily and had a near miss on a downhill hairpin but survived it and carried on to service.

In service, the whole team had heard that Marcus had been off in Falstone but were tight lipped. They knew that if I found out I may back off and lose concentration. Brian Maguire wandered over for a chat and announced that car 57 had been spotted in a ditch and the whole story was revealed to us. I think 8:25 is a comfortable lead.

Falstone 2 : SS 30
We did a time 7 seconds slower than the morning’s attempt and Marcus managed to stay on the road. Despite us having backed off, we were still the quickest through.

Broomylinn 2 : SS31
This was to be a gruelling 18 miler consisting of Bewshaugh and Broomylinn 1 joined end to end.
At the start there was a delay. We had half an hour to kill. Andy Walshaw was autograph hunting and asked some of the famous drivers.
“Do you want my autograph?” I joked with Andy
“No thanks. You’re not famous for another 18 miles” was his reply.
I was interviewed by Malcolm Wilson as all the crews, marshals and spectators stood around having a laugh before the start. I asked Malcolm if he was nervous as he only had a 6 minute lead.
The stage was driven with extreme caution and we had no problems until the last couple of miles. The back end started to wander as if it had a pair of punctures or perhaps a broken diff. We spent some time on the grass and very nearly went over an overhang so backed off to shopping pace, constantly looking in the mirror for the Stratos who started a minute behind us. We held it to the end and were congratulated first by Colin Heppenstall. An interview for the TV was completely un-expected and un-rehearsed and we headed off to emergency service to sort out our little problem. And Marcus took the last stage win.

We changed the rear wheels and discovered that the build up of mud and stones inside the rim was locking them onto the callipers. Perhaps scrapers are necessary for the longer stages.

So for us, it’s our first ever rally win, which cannot be said for our tyres which also won it the year before on Steve Bannister’s tyres. I think they can hold claim to being the only tyres to win the RAC Rally twice!

Absolutely massive thanks must go out to all the guys who help us on this rally so I’ll list them all personally

Pud. Chris Wood. Who looks after the car before during and after the event. It’s proved almost 100% reliable and had us to the finish of the RAC five years in a row. I can’t afford not to have him in charge of the mechanicals. Woodfield Garage 01977 643675. Ask for the customer relations department.

Steve Carter and Simon Law for running chase car.

Jim Plevey for supplying Port and the crew bus and helping with the preparation and planning.

Mick and Bob Yeomans for mechanical support in service.

Guy Waddington for servicing and being the jack man. It’s much better with only one jack man. That year was interesting when we had 2!

Hannah Jones on texting, facebook and bacon sarnies duties. Everyone at home knew we’d won before we did.

Organisers, marshals, rescue and recovery crews and all the other unsung heroes who put on this amazing event.

Driver : Dave Hemingway
Navigator : Simon Ashton

Introduction
We entered the event late this year. It has always been Jim’s intention to do the event as his big return to rallying following last year’s little accident with the felled trees in Portland but unfortunately he never managed to pluck up the courage to broach the subject with the war office so politely declined at the 11th hour.

Once again, Simon stepped bravely into the fold and the forward planning continued.

The car was taken into Woodfield Garage (specialist rally car preparation to the highest standards. 01977 643675) in plenty of time to fettle the few little jobs which it required, such as the new front wing fitting and a complete rebuild of all the drive train such as gearbox, prop shaft and diff.

Read this bit carefully as you may need to rely on this info later in the report. When everything was re-assembled, the annoying vibration that we had had for a couple of years still remained. It was decided that the only excuse for this was the prop shaft, so on the Thursday before the event, we had it completely re-built and checked over once again. The vibration still existed and was quite fierce at 63mph to 70mph but was non-existent above or below this range. We had no further options so off we went rallying.

The Plan
It’s not very often that we enter a rally with a plan but this was the exception to the rule. Previous plans have been quite simple. Lets go like stink and see if we win being a popular one and lets go steady and see who falls off is a more common one on the longer events such as the RAC. This year’s plan was to go like stink from the off, utilising local knowledge in the Yorkshire Forests to our advantage in an attempt to establish ourselves at the front of the field or even build a gap over other cars and put them under pressure to chase us or resign themselves to the fact that we’d beaten them so they’d back off and drive for a finish, leaving us to plod gently round Scotland and Keilder where I am far less talented than I am in Yorkshire. I hope you’re keeping up with this?

Day 1
If ever a plan was working well, this was it! Richard Hill had come along to spoil the party and try to embarrass us all with his 4 door Escort shopping car. I’d actually predicted that he’d be the winner and the way he scarpered off on Sunday confirmed my theory.

We were quick out of the blocks and the rustiness I predicted as a result of only competing once on a tarmac airfield in the last 12 months was far from accurate. We took stage wins on the opening two stages on Temple Newsam and headed into the forest with a massive 4 second lead over the baying pack of Escorts, a Fiesta and an Avenger.

Stage three was in Dalby but named Flainsey for some reason. The plan was continuing to work in a fashion. Richard Hill, predictably took the lead from us in here but Steve French in the Avenger was flying and had also passed us. We continued to eek out the gap from us to fourth place where Brian Lawlor, alias Stonemad was some 9 seconds adrift.

Dalby was the next stage. We sneaked a second from French and put a massive 27 seconds into Stonemad who was the closest of the rest of the field to give us a comfortable third heading for Langdale. Here we dropped a further 5 seconds to French and made another 7 up on Stonemad and fifth place Gardiner was now over a minute behind. Nearly there. Only two and a half days to go!

Following service we returned to Flainsey where we encountered our first bout of bad luck. We clipped a small rock about a mile before the Woodyard complex and about three miles before the finish and the rear right tyre popped immediately off the rim. We limped our way through the rest of the stage dropping around half a minute. The stage was also the demise of Steve French who dropped over 10 minutes and despite our misfortune we were elevated into second place with an 18 second lead over Stonemad.

Back in Dalby, we were snapping at the heels of Richard Hill who only took 7 seconds from us but now lead by a comfortable minute and a half with Stonemad dropping a further 4 to us leaving him 22 adrift. Langdale and the eighth stage of the day we continued as we had been doing. Hill had us for a few seconds and Stonemad dropped a few to us so with little drama we set about the road section to less familiar territory where the playing field would be levelled out somewhat.

I still maintain my dislike for Greystoke but on this occasion, not for the washboard surface or the unforgiving ditches but for the bad luck it bestowed upon us. The vibration at 63 MPH had changed its mind by this time and we felt that all was not happy in the transmission train as the rattles started at 43MPH now. It’s only a rattle, what could possibly go wrong now? About halfway through the stage I selected third which proved to have disappeared. We ground to a halt as I fished around for a gear and I eventually found first. We had forward motion which eliminated diff and prop shaft as areas for failure and when I once again grabbed for third, this confirmed my fears that the gearbox was at fault. Fourth was also absent so we elected to return to second which didn’t prove suitable for a full stage. Further exploration exposed fifth as a further useable option so the remainder of the stage was taken in second and fifth.

Just as I was working out exactly how we’d get back to service, Simon dropped the bombshell that we still had to go round again. By the second run of Greystoke it was becoming pretty much impossible to enter second from any gear other than first and we couldn’t enter first unless stationary. We warned the start marshals of our predicament and ventured bravely into the breach.

We didn’t get caught in stage so some heed must have been taken of our warning. An estimated minute was dropped on SS9 and almost two were dropped on SS10 which dropped us down to 3rd overall, over two minutes down on Stonemad but remarkably, still half a minute up on Gardiner in 4th place.

It’s times like this that you are really really grateful for a good service crew. We were shadowed by the chase car all the way back to Carlisle Airport where we were met at the gate by most of the remainder of the eight strong crew who helped the dying gearbox to transport us to the truck where the spare gearbox awaited. A quick WOFT was undertaken as Pud slid the new gearbox into the car and within half an hour a test drive proved all was well, apart from the ratios of the newly fitted standard box.

Under normal circumstances, the spare gearbox is a means to an end. A get you home. An excuse to not put the car on the trailer. We still had two days rallying to do with a gearbox on which first gear was too low for comfortable driving round the service area! I needed to discipline myself seriously as touching first gear on stage could have serious consequences.

Day 2
Shit, I’ve written 2 pages and half way down the third, I’m onto day 2. This could be an epic novel.

The Forest of Ae was our debut into Scotland and for the first time in the four years of the RAC we ran East to West. I’m familiar with the stage although I wouldn’t say that I knew it, and I adapted my Usual, day 2, can’t be arsed to go fast attitude which is sort of involuntary. It feels quick but the times tell you that it’s not. I always ask to check the timecards after Ae for some reason and this year was no exception. We dropped over a minute to Hill, three quarters of a minute to Stonemad and almost half a minute to Gardiner. We held onto 4th by a skinny 4 seconds.

Whether it was the self chastising or the fact that I needed a dump and couldn’t find the latrines, I’d got my arse into gear and was doing some serious driving here and took another stage win. But, at less than a mile long, the three seconds we gained were quite insignificant. We went back to Ae next.

Hill was still flying and was untouchable and Stonemad had a quarter of a minute from us and was disappearing steadily into the distance. Our battle was now for third with Gardiner. Hill was away in First. Lawlor in no-man’s land in second and we were now having to fight to defend our podium from Gardiner.

Despite me being somewhat an expert on spectator stages, we only took second on Heathhall 2 as Richard Hill had found some special pace here as well! A couple more seconds over Gardiner were welcome, however.

Twiglees next and another 12 lost to Lawlor but we were making ground up on Gardiner despite the useless 3 speed box (first being like tits on a fish and the overdrive fifth was like an ashtray on a motorbike). The word on the street was that Gardiner was suffering from braking problems having lost feed to the back callipers and was trying all sorts to get the fronts to compensate.

By the time we reached Castle O’er we were over three minutes down on Stonemad but had snook to over a half minute gap over Gardiner. Things were looking up and with steady runs through Ash Park and Kershope we had established a 55 second advantage in third place. It looks like we’ve got it in the bag!

I think “bugger” is a good word although I have better ones in my 9pm watershed vocabulary.

About half way through Castle O’er 2 we experienced quite a strange phenomenon. It is customary in a Mk2 Escort to use parts of the scenery to aid you on your way through the stage. Grassy verges can offer nice shortcuts, ditches can aid cornering and banks on the outside of bends can help to regulate a flapping arse end. But not on this occasion! The rear wheels were allowed to drift acceptably on to the bank on the outside of a 90 left and the swinging rear was curtailed in an acceptable manner but all went tits up at that point. All drive to the wheels was lost and we ground to a halt. The obvious answer was that the standard gearbox had shit itself so I needed to find an un-broken gear. All seemed shot. The slope was steep so perhaps a half shaft had broken and the power was not transferring to the remaining good shaft? Lets rev it and warm the diff plates up, that should lock it! Unfortunately not. Are there any of the gears we haven’t tried yet? FIRST. We engaged the crawler gear and the car started to move. After a short while we engaged second, then third, then fourth…….
We continued through the stage as fast as we dared, in the mean time, I was on the radio reporting a broken drive shaft and the chase crew had readied themselves with jack and shaft somewhere close to the end of the stage. When we exited stage right and into emergency service, we found a particularly smoky tyre which seemed to have spun on the rim before going properly flat. The halfshaft was perfectly intact and with the fitting of a new wheel and tyre, we were on our way to Ash Park.

The three quarters of a minute we dropped there were marginally more than the time that Alan Gardiner had dropped with his brakes so we were now behind by 9 seconds and a serious push in Kershope was required. But unfortunately, D.H. engaged Jessie Brain once again and dropped a further 7 seconds to Alan Gardiner so we went into the last overnight halt 16 down on 3rd place with everything to do tomorrow.

Day 3
Day three consisted of two trips round a three-stage loop in Killer Keilder. I was up to my usual lack-lustre first thing in the morning ponce about and set 9th fastest stage time to drop us a valuable 16 seconds to double our deficit in the Hopehouse stage. Things improved marginally in Broomylinn with a 6th and only dropping a further 10 seconds but by Roughside the Red Bull had kicked in with a second place stage time and we pulled back a massive 7 seconds in our battle for third place.

We went into service, safe in the knowledge that if we were to push any further we would end up in a box. We had found the limit of the driver’s ability, talent and experience and decided that for the safety of the car, crew and everyone involved we would not go back in to Keilder with the intention of overcoming the 38 second gap to third place but would instead sit in the wings, as we had done last year, and accept whatever silverware was offered to us on a plate through the misfortune of others.

Steady runs through Hopehouse 2 and Broomylinn 2 were enjoyed and we treated ourselves to a very on the limit, sideways run through the final stage of Roughside 2 to discover to our disappointment that so had everyone else had also enjoyed a trouble free run.

Congratulations go to Richard Hill who was the winner in a class of his own. Stonemad, Brian Lawlor who maintained the pace from day one to day three and to Alan Gardiner for holding his own on day 2 with brake problems then turning on the pace when it mattered on day three. The big question is – how much did that standard gearbox slow us down after day 1? Hopefully quite a lot or I’m getting older than I thought I was!

So we got fourth place to add to our third and fourth previously and thoroughly enjoyed the event once more.

Thanks and congratulations go out to the organising team and special thanks to all the marshals, timekeepers and emergency staff along the route and a particular thanks as usual to all the Greensleeves crew who fed, watered WOFTed and repaired us and the car along the way.