Competition Round-Up

Despite it being high summer, when most people are on holiday the last month has been pretty hectic.

The end of July saw Bognor Regis MC running their sprint at Goodwood. Although we had no members competing, we did have Joe White, Chris Morford, Chrissie Chorley and Brian Hugh out marshalling. Brian was on duty at Lavant Corner with his Land-Rover to pull any wayward cars out of the gravel trap. Joe, Chris and Chrissie were responsible for organising the paddock. The paddock team, with a good deal of arm waiving coupled with glaring looks from Chrissie managed to get all the competitors through their practice and timed runs by 3.30 pm, often having the next 4 cars out on the start line before the final car of the previous set had turned off the track into the paddock.

The following day saw the revival of the Tempest Stages, back after a lot of work by Barry Guess and his team from Sutton and Cheam, Middlesex County and Hart motor clubs. Several Southern crews were competing and hopefully we will hear from them, how they fared. More Southern members were out marshalling. Dave Walters had decided to try his hand as a radio operator and having obtained one of the club radios from Neil Boxall was out on the Minley Stage as were Sue Smith and Vanessa Linley. Ian Harden was marshalling in Yateley Wood whilst Chris Morford was producing interim results at the service area.

Two weeks later and it was off to Dorset for the Ksport Tarmac Stages. Not only did Colin Early and his team have to contend with the demanding stage set up requirements but also the odd attitude of Bournemouth & District MC.

Fleck flies to Avon win

Reproduced courtesy of The Daily Echo (Bournemouth)

Top seed Steve Fleck dominated the Ksport Tarmac Stages Rally at Avon Park.

Driving his 2.3 litre BMW M3, fleck and co-driver Kevin Cheeseman set the fastest time on all 10 stages around the Ministry of Defence track and completed the rally two minutes quicker than Bernard Roper and Karen Beeson's Escort G4.

There was more local success for local duo Tim Sunderland and Ian Kamcke who steered their Peugeot Rallye 106 to 25th and 1st in class.

Driving a similar car, Harry Dodd (father of well known national championship contender and 1999 Rallye Sunseeker winner Marcus Dodd) had an eventful drive to 32nd.

Veteran driver Wilf Jones from Romsey, navigated by Kevin Williams showed drivers half his age the way home, pushing his Escort to 9th place.

Poole's John Hardy, whose aunt Susan Rae organises programme sales on Rallye Sunseeker on behalf of Leukaemia Research, and new navigator Daniel Duffy broke a drive shaft on stage 1 in their Nova Gsi, then survived a cracked gearbox to finish 15th overall and second in class.

Sharing the only Mini in the rally, local team David and Julia White forced their way to 28th overall and a fine third in class against more modern machinery.

The two way battle for the top lady honours was settled in favour of Kerry Young, SCC, driving a MK2 Escort who finished 3 minutes ahead of the Peugeot 309 of Sue Scriven.

Winnie the Witch goes to Bournemouth

I've been at it again - on Sunday 15th August I was busily knocking lumps (literally) off Ness's Nova at Avon Park for the K Sport Tarmac Stages Rally.

Longer, stiffer front springs would hopefully reduce the bottoming through the infaymouse 'bus stop' although what kind of bus ever used it I couldn't imagine. One with a sump guard ??? And a new top column bearing was supposed to cure a nasty knock from the steering - it didn't It took two of us to get the steering wheel nut off (what's the most important nut in the car - the one holding the steering wheel) then two weeks to get the wheel itself off (waiting on the special Vauxhall steering wheel puller) another day to get the cowl off the column (I eventually cut it) and five minutes to replace the knackered column bearing. Still had a nasty knock from the front which appeared to be the bottom column bush - which Nova's don't have. More swearing and eventually most of the noise is gone. Note that most of - it's important later on. I wasn't entirely happy with the front end but I ran out of time so off we went - baaad mistake !!!

Friday comes and so it's pick up the tranny, pick up the trailer, go home and load up. Friday is tyre blowing up day as well - and one of the fronts was going down fast ! Hopefully the tyre man can work some magic.

Saturday afternoon and off to Bournemouth for scrutineering, arrive just in time to get soaked to the skin unloading the car in a downpour which seems like He is practising for another great flood - and I've ordered slicks. Which was more trouble - frantic phone calls from the tyre man on Thursday - Dunlop haven't got them - despite confirming they had when they took the order - will Michelins do instead - not much choice at this stage is there - another baaad mistake.

I've also got a new sack of spuds installed (Eunice Ho - many of you have been thrashed by her at the karting) - she's a lot nicer to look at and 20kg lighter than the previous incumbent Mark Wyatt who, for those of you who are interested, should be out of Broadmoor soon.

Finally make contact with Eunice on Saturday evening - she's been in the US all week - she's back, just - and practically voiceless - oh *&$%. OK a new battery in the intercom then, sod the expense.

Sunday morning 7am and I'm at the gate - and they won't let me in - you can't do this to me I'm a friend of the organiser. So ! By 7:30 I'm in and getting set up - no service crew, everyone is on holiday. Luckily Tony Straker and Brian Hugh were willing to share Mark and Jeremy - thank you, all four of you.

Tyre man is there so drop off the wheels, including the duff one and leave them to it. Turns out the valve is the problem, phew ! The new ones look smart. Michelin TA20's. Now Michelins only come in three grades - like soft medium and hard. Dunlops have seven and I have been using chewing gum on the front and soft chewing gum on the rear. Both softer than TA20's but we whack them on the back and trundle off.

Stage 1 and the tyres leave the start for 2.6 miles at 26/23 and come back at 38/27 hmmm. Things are definitely tail happy. But not bad we're 25th. The car immediately in front of us was an Evo 4 and he only took 10 seconds out of us.

Stage 2 a repeat of stage 1 - here it goes. You've seen the roll up kerbs on the F1 racing on the telly, well due to a slight lack of stoppers we rolled right up two of them - hard, and made straight for the tyre wall. Much waggling of the wheel later we scraped past and back on to the road undamaged. I begin to worry at this point, the road book instructions just kept coming - has she noticed - only partly ‘cos she's so low and so small she can hardly see over the dash !

Problem seems to be that when the brakes heat up the rear self adjusters don't so we get a three foot brake pedal and anything over two foot six and you can't stop. Ho hum, who needs brakes anyway, I'll just ease up says I. Wrong.

Stage 3 - 6.25 miles and no real dramas, a chat with my man from Williams F1 - yes I really hobnob with someone from Williams F1 (E's hubby) - and dropping the rear tyre pressures has made a slight difference and the tyres are getting hotter on the longer stages so they work better. What I should have done is drop them even more.

Stage 4, (all the even stages are repeats) and it went really wrong. Just up the hill from the bus stop is a chicane then a right over crest with huge earth mover tyres on the bend. We got over the brow and the back decided it should be at the front. This is a third gear corner so it was all happening very fast. Instant decision was ‘nail it' and try and keep the back behind us which also entailed less lock but since we were pointing more or less at the apex of the corner by this time that wasn't a problem. Backwards off that corner we were definitely a retirement. So we ploughed through the grass, ditch, young telegraph poles and sand to eventually arrive back on the road 50 yards further down the road, less the (co-drivers side) door mirror with dents in the rear wing and scratches in the roof and all the way down the side. And the instructions just kept coming. I didn't have the heart to tell her we nearly missed the next chicane by passing it on the grass. We were still quicker than our first run though. And we were still 26th.

Stages 5 & 6 were 8.1 miles and it was hot and I was knackered. 6 was also our next accident - if you can call it that. Lap one, chicane over brow - ooh it's open we'll take that faster next time - wrong - next time it had been knocked down and rebuilt tighter so that was the end of the right hand mirror - balanced up the aerodynamics though - we had a definite drag from that side on the straights. I'm now told that mirrors are ‘consumables' - like tyres and fuel.

Good news though - lunch was coming and we had pulled up to 21st. There were definitely some funny noises coming from under the front and during lunch (very civilised) - a burger - yeuch, Ellya Gold, who had been spectating told us that as we left a series of S bends the car was rising up, jumping sideways and making a terrible noise. What can you say - you should hear it from the inside. This is another third gear corner and we have gross wheelspin on dry tarmac using slicks oo-er ! Even driving through the service area something sounds wrong. The service crew (thank's Mark) is summoned and we set to. The conclusion is that the independent front suspension is now too independent. The left wheel is independent of the right and they both are both fairly independent of the car. Is that serious I ask. It will probably last he says - not sounding all that convincing, there are only 32 stage miles to go. Ever tried driving one of those silly bikes which have a mind of there own, you steer left, it goes straight on. Well that's what it was like - at nigh on 100 mph. Not to worry, it can only get worse.

7 & 8 were comparatively short at 6.2 miles each and despite a slowish run through 7 (the burger wanted to escape) we managed to rise to the dizzying heights of 18th. Things were now getting a bit rough - we were running with some of the top cars by now and car 7, a really noisy escort G4, 2 litre was on his second lap just as we left the start of our first so he caught us 100 yds from a standstill on a single track road - and he's been building up speed for 3 miles and he didn't lift !!! If I'd had wing mirrors and seen him coming I'd have taken to the trees, but since I didn't and couldn't see him in the interior mirror (the start was on a bend) the first I knew was the noise tearing past. Actually if I'd had wing mirrors he'd probably have knocked them off.

Things were running a bit late now so 9 & 10 at 7.95 miles each were the last two stages, which we ran off relatively slowly to get the finish, dropping to 22nd and 5th in class on the way - we wus robbed. Car 40 got away with missing a lap of stage 10 saving him 3 minutes and lifting him 8 places. I was busy loading up the trailer and didn't check the results so no-one noticed until I got a copy on Monday morning - by which time of course the results were final. Car 42 got away with it on stage 9 - heads will roll. We also had the identical overall time as car 32 which we had been ahead of all day (he equalled us on stage 10) but we were classified behind him - can't see why, on my reckoning we should have been 20th overall, and 4th in class. Not too bad considering.

Stage 10 held a nasty sting in it's tail - or more accurately, ours. We were now running ahead of car 3 a 2.1 litre escort who was desperate to get third. He caught us coming out of a 6 bar chicane but didn't manage to get past us before the next corner - so he hit us a tap as we went in. I wasn't really aware of it at the time and just let him past on the next straight - OK he flew past anyway. When we reached the finish he came over and apologised for being so aggressive. No problem I say, until I'm loading the car on the trailer - where did that purple paint on the rear bumper come from ?? What colour is car 3 ?? No prizes. No real damage done either but if he had tipped us round we could well have been in trouble because he would probably have just pushed us along sideways on his front panel.

So there you have it. We didn't win anything but I got another signature on my licence - one more to get back to National ‘A' - two and an ECG for International but that's expensive so unless I need it I won't bother. Next event is likely to be Longcross in December and the 1 in 3 hill. Eunice claims to have enjoyed herself and she certainly did take the rough with the smooth. All I need now is... New rack, rack mounts, TCA bushes, rear brakes, rear beam bushes, steering column, gearbox rebuild (no limited in the limited slip diff), tyres - did you know tyres have canvas inside them ? - and anything else you can think of - power steering, ABS, traction control, etc. and we're ready again.

Thanks to Vanessa for risking the car, Colin for organising a great event and loaning all his service equipment, the Strakers and Brian Hugh for keeping us going, K Sport et al for Sponsoring the event and the marshals who kept it all together throughout the day. Anyone got some spare Nova Door mirrors ?