Bulldog Rally - Ooops
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 11:04 am
It was all going so well.... 
The aim we set ourselves this rally was to get in the mix with the middle group of Escorts. Basically there are 3 groups in my class, the front runners that are super fast (also have the experience, money etc e.g. Steve Perez who owns Vodka Kick and runs in a Stratos, lovely car!!!) the middle of the pack (mainly a gang of Escorts, a BMW 2002ti, and a 911RS) and then the gang that bring up the rear (a mottley crew of people like me, self funded, lower powered cars and further down on the experience ladder). I've been in the back pack for some time now and felt the time had come to make a push to the gang in front.
The first stage went well:
we were pushing it nicely, power sliding around most corners, steering it on the power, plenty of commitment (but not too much...), driving off the notes nicely. By the end of the 1st stage we were right in the mix of the middle pack (made up of 6 cars). The pack was spread over just 4 seconds and I was slap bang in the middle of them, beating the 911RS
I was only 2 seconds off the pack leader, the BMW 2002 Ti. Once I saw this on the time board at the end of the 1st stage we set our sights on pushing it a little more to see if we could leapfrog him (I think you can guess where this is going now
). We were not long into the stage when we lost power on full throttle 
we were going up long hill sections on what seemed like half throttle. Not sure what the problem is yet but my suspicion is fuel starvation as it went away as soon as I came off the throttle at the top of the hill for a hairpin. It was as if the float bowls emptied.... strange as I'd never experienced that before (still to investigate that further later today). Once round the hairpin, we got power back so red mist came down as loosing so much power going up the hill 
floored it for the next mile, then going round a slight right at full tilt, it sharpened quickly into a 5right. Realising I had way too much speed, I tried to turn in to get the back to slide out hoping to do a mega big power slide round the bend at some speed!!! but alas the back didn't want to play ball and we understeered off the bend over a bank and dropped off what seemed like a cliff when we were going over it. Very scary to go over the edge like that and not see the ground from over you bonnet, only thing we saw were tree tops so we knew it was steep. The car landed on all 4 wheels, tipped onto the side (my side) then settled back down onto all 4 wheels again.
We realised immediately that there was no way we were going to get out without a winch. So it was rally over. You can see me in the background with resigned hands on hips, kicking the ground in anger
The positives are:
We're not hurt
The cars not too damaged
At least we have a fresh set of tyres ready for the next rally
We now know we have the pace to mix it with the middle pack.
Just wish we had more miles on that rally as we were really starting to get into the swing of things
Roll on the next rally
The aim we set ourselves this rally was to get in the mix with the middle group of Escorts. Basically there are 3 groups in my class, the front runners that are super fast (also have the experience, money etc e.g. Steve Perez who owns Vodka Kick and runs in a Stratos, lovely car!!!) the middle of the pack (mainly a gang of Escorts, a BMW 2002ti, and a 911RS) and then the gang that bring up the rear (a mottley crew of people like me, self funded, lower powered cars and further down on the experience ladder). I've been in the back pack for some time now and felt the time had come to make a push to the gang in front.
The first stage went well:
we were pushing it nicely, power sliding around most corners, steering it on the power, plenty of commitment (but not too much...), driving off the notes nicely. By the end of the 1st stage we were right in the mix of the middle pack (made up of 6 cars). The pack was spread over just 4 seconds and I was slap bang in the middle of them, beating the 911RS
I was only 2 seconds off the pack leader, the BMW 2002 Ti. Once I saw this on the time board at the end of the 1st stage we set our sights on pushing it a little more to see if we could leapfrog him (I think you can guess where this is going now
). We were not long into the stage when we lost power on full throttle we were going up long hill sections on what seemed like half throttle. Not sure what the problem is yet but my suspicion is fuel starvation as it went away as soon as I came off the throttle at the top of the hill for a hairpin. It was as if the float bowls emptied.... strange as I'd never experienced that before (still to investigate that further later today). Once round the hairpin, we got power back so red mist came down as loosing so much power going up the hill floored it for the next mile, then going round a slight right at full tilt, it sharpened quickly into a 5right. Realising I had way too much speed, I tried to turn in to get the back to slide out hoping to do a mega big power slide round the bend at some speed!!! but alas the back didn't want to play ball and we understeered off the bend over a bank and dropped off what seemed like a cliff when we were going over it. Very scary to go over the edge like that and not see the ground from over you bonnet, only thing we saw were tree tops so we knew it was steep. The car landed on all 4 wheels, tipped onto the side (my side) then settled back down onto all 4 wheels again. We realised immediately that there was no way we were going to get out without a winch. So it was rally over. You can see me in the background with resigned hands on hips, kicking the ground in anger
The positives are:
We're not hurt
The cars not too damaged
At least we have a fresh set of tyres ready for the next rally
We now know we have the pace to mix it with the middle pack.
Just wish we had more miles on that rally as we were really starting to get into the swing of things
Roll on the next rally
Glad you're OK & the car will live to see another day 