My First Rally.....

[Darren65]

I'm fortunate to have engaged the services of a successful pro Porsche race driver to act as my Navigator...

Cheers,

I see your wife has been replace by a certain Midlands-based dental specialist ...


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.......my wife refuses to get in a car with me ever since her DDK Yorkshire trip!

My daughter thought about it but now I have a seasoned motor sport professional to help

[Nick Moss]

Make sure your trip is properly calibrated, if that isn't 100% accurate you will be struggling. I'm not sure of the HERO format, but a set of average speed tables from Don Barrow will be a great help. Do you have a map light?

Good luck!

[MikeB]

Oh and a tip re the 8 Celebtities Rally to Siagon thing....... do wear your harness like a ladies foundation garment

[hot66]

nice summary here for you Darren

http://www.motorclub.uk.net/sections-2

[Darren65]

Thanks James

[camperco]

Advice. The tests are marked out with numbered or lettered cones and the penalties for going the wrong way around a cone is usually 10 seconds per cone. You will get a diagram (not to scale) showing you the directions to take. You need to agree a system beforehand with your navigator as to how he will call out the directions. You have to go left, right, hairpin, slalom, donut, go around twice etc, etc. After 28 years I'm still struggling to find a perfect system, its sounds easy enough until you try it!

The 2018 tests will be at Bicester heritage and Turweston airfield.

Find somewhere to practice if you can. See you there.

[Lightweight_911]

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So, how did it go ?


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[MikeB]

He’s still Looking for the Final Control

[Darren65]

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So, how did it go ?

.....well the organisers actually sent through an email today saying photos had now been uploaded and there was one of my car so I must have been there! .....



.....unfortunately we didn't win! I'll explain in a bit

Cheers,

[Darren65]

Fail to prepare then prepare to fail!.....

.....that would be a little harsh as the car spent a couple of days being checked over in the workshop prior to the event.....



...where we found the Pirelli's seem just a tad wider than Avon's....



....all sorted as we thought although the actual day was a wipeout!

[Darren65]

Sanjay and I arrived at the Magnolia Park Hotel for a days training prior to the event which was quite an eye opener although Sanjay seemed to absorb everything that was thrown at him....

....then it was scrutineering where we had to get through a 99dB noise test! .......not knowing how strictly this would be enforced I took no chances and fitted a pair of mufflers that slide inside the ends of the exhausts. The only trouble with these is that they restrict breathing and with my car not being happy idling for too long I had a fear of the plugs fouling as we queued waiting for the car to be inspected.

Once passed we went through registration, talked tactics, asked for some advice and then did a trial run where it quickly became apparent how green we were and decided that we'd forget about timing and concentrate on just finding our way around the regularities......being only an hour away we then headed for home to return the following morning for our 9:27 start.....

[Darren65]

....during our practice run the Mongrel had started to run a little rough and wasn't firing correctly. I figured the plugs had become fouled whilst waiting for scrutineering although hoped a good Italian tune up would cure things on my run home....unfortunately that wasn't to be as the car started to pop, bang and was almost undriveable.....

....arriving home at 8:00PM I decided I'd strip and clean all the plugs, fix the rally plates and do some revision......the wife had other ideas and we went to the pub!

Up at 4:00AM I discovered that I'm even slower and more useless in the garage than usual!.....plugs removed, cleaned with thinners and a wire brush I set off with little time to spare hoping my issues were resolved.....unfortuantely that wasn't to be and the car was running even worse than the previous day!.....having to stop and check things I realised that the car died when turning off one bank of plugs which I thought might be wiring to the switch as I'd recently worked behind the dash when fitting the Halda cable to the speedo .....

.....I arrived at the start with minutes to spare before our start time.....I called ahead and Sanjay had primed the support crew to do a little electrical testing....by switching the HT leads on the coils the guys were able to reverse the issue with the coil switches and therefore diagnosed a faulty coil with only one set of plugs firing!

Still, we weren't beaten yet and started the rally before heading off to get the issue fixed.....

[Darren65]

....the rest of the day went like this.....

.....plan was to get a quick fix, miss the first couple of regularities and rejoin for the special stages at Bicester Heritage.. ....calls to local specialists to find someone with a coil.....a trip to Autofarm to purchase a couple of coils......new coil fitted, no joy!.....various calls between Mark at Autofarm (top guy and very helpful ) and Mick from Redtek, lots of testing before Mark diagnosed a burnt out rotor arm although he also advised the plugs would be totally useless now.....a painful drive home to fit a spare rotor arm, now the car was at least firing on both banks but plugs shagged.....tried revving the nuts off the car but couldn't clean the plugs.......so, a trip to Gary at GDC Automotive to have 12 new plugs fitted.....

....and finally the car was fixed!

Only problem it was now approaching 3:00PM and we'd missed 90% of the day!......undeterred we headed off for the final special stage which was fun and the last regularity.

We started and we finished and proudly boasted that we'd only made two mistakes all day but of course we had already been disqualified long before then!

As for comments on the rally I can't really offer much.....it seemed like a well organised and well supported event with the top crews very accurate and competitive, there were some lovely cars in attendance and on a nice day it could be a bit of fun although having to travel at an average 28MPH at times does go against the grain......there's also quite a steep learning curve if you want to compete. Many of the people there had certainly caught the bug and they're good friendly crowd and very welcoming.

Personally I'd rather be on a track or driving flat out through Wales although think I will give the event another go as I don't feel I've done one yet.

A few pics from the day....















....and finally a special thank you to my incredibly patient navigator who never complained once through the whole shambles and was very supportive........thanks for your help and company Sanjay and sorry I messed up the day.....and don't worry, I promise to never ask you again! ....



Cheers,

[sladey]

Nice one Darren - thanks for sharing - better luck next time

[Lightweight_911]

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That was a shame Darren - thanks for the insight anyway.

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