For those of you who are smiling having just read such names as "Cilwendeg", "Audi Sport", "Bath Festival" & "Illuminations", then the article you are about to read will appear to be 8 years late in getting to press. For those of you who are a bit perplexed by this opening statement, then go and ask somebody who is grinning what it all means.
Picture if you can, a hot summers evening in mid Wales, the setting is a small market town called Welshpool, the population has doubled for one night and there are more Mk2 Escorts than you can shake a stick at. In fact there were about 70 Mk2 Escorts alone (in the rally), the remaining 20 or so cars were made up of Sunbeams, Avengers, Chevettes and the like. The reason is simple, that night was the annual running of the "Briedden Road Rally" (pronounced Brythen). This rally has a cult following, it is the highlight of the road rallying calendar for both competitors and spectators alike. It attracts a capacity entry of 90 cars two weeks after the reg's have been published, this is usually at least 2 months prior to the event, and still has at least 20 reserves. It attracts more spectators than all the English road rallies put together. So why is it so popular?. For those of you still grinning the answer is obvious. For those of you still unsure, I will enlighten.
What is the point of rallying?. For me its being sat in the left hand seat with the harness done up tight being driven flat out, down dark country lanes just wider than the car and reading from a map as if they were pace notes, calling the slot and then enjoying that couple of seconds of adrenaline as the handbrake goes on, the back end drifts out and the spectators cheer as you disappear into the night in a cloud of dust and gravel. Now if that doesn't warm the cockles of your heart then I suggest you stick to table top rallies. If that was a description of what road rallying means to you or would like to experience then you should order your reg's for next years event now. Because in essence that is what the Briedden is all about. Its an event that is as close to the "Motoring News" road rallies as we are ever likely to see. The formula is the same each year, stay within the boundaries of the rules but make it as competitive as possible and under no circumstances must it have any stupid unnecessary "altern ative navigation", it's all six figure grid references in order. The first half is usually preplot and the second a mixture of preplot and plot & bash, the clocks are not adjusted in any way to keep the average speed down to 30mph, contrary to popular belief. The only difference between the current Welsh road rallies and those of the Targa timing era is the frequency of time consuming passage controls, grass triangles, code boards facing the wrong way and often a few miles of whites, sometimes these can get quite rough, but it's a trade off.
So now you are in the picture, you are listening to your ABBA tapes (CD's weren't around then), you are wearing your Ford RS Rally jacket and flared trousers. Some of you probably still do, so I won't labour that point too much. The year is in actual fact 1994, not 1987 and I have just done the best road rally I have ever had the pleasure of competing in.
I managed to talk my way into the Nav's seat of the event's favourite, local man John Walsh, car 3 a pink 2.1ltr Mk2 Escort. The seeding is done on drivers results for the expert crews in Wales. Earlier in the week I had driven the 300 mile round trip to Welshpool and back for a 25 mile practice run, it was an amazing experience navigating for somebody so committed in their driving, if not a touch unnerving. At 12.03 we left the start ramp flagged away by a local dignitary and set off on the 7 mile run out to the first selective. The first selective like all the first half was preplot. It was a 15 miler with about 3 miles of white. This was home territory for John, so he was out to set the fastest time. The first spectator point of the night allegedly had in excess of 200 spectators, based on the number of cars lining the road. We had lost car 1 by the first passage control and were now the second car on the road and were approaching very rapidly a slot hairpin left, a quick stab of brakes, flick on the hand brake and around we went in a blaze of flashes and tire smoke at about 50mph, the back end coming right out and glancing the bank, leaving a pair of thick black lines fish tailing off up the road, a picture paints a thousand words, seeing is believing etc. We set the second fastest time to "Mad" Mick Jones, yes the very same 15th overall on last years RAC Rally "Mad" Mick Jones. He dropped 21secs, we dropped 23secs. Crews outside the top ten were typically dropping 2 - 3 mins. That was the way it was to be all night, I was getting to the end of the competitive sections shaking with the adrenaline. I have never worked so hard on the maps, keeping ahead of this guy took all your concentration and nerve, but what an amazing feeling coming into petrol third overall, having just lost first place by a couple of seconds.
This was to be my night I thought prematurely but the second half was to be a different story. We had boiled the brake fluid towards the end of the first half and were now quite spongy. They would occasionally firm up and then off we went at 100% attack again only to lose them at speeds in excess of 100mph. The odd escape straight on down some conveniently situated whites, were now getting a bit too hairy. We were now dropping time to the likes of Mick Jones and Dennis Quinn. To add to our mechanical problems I started to feel a bit the worse for wear about two thirds of the way round the second half, whilst plotting on the move at 80% attack my stomach was contemplating giving me back my dinner. The combination of driving slower to reduce the braking and to nurse my stomach was now pushing us outside the top ten. Eventually my stomach got its way and we had to make a couple of unscheduled stops. With about 20 miles to go we were now down in the late teens, I was feeling fine again but the fuel gauge was registering fumes only. We had now been caught and passed by half a dozen cars as we were cruising on a wing and a prayer. Only a couple of hours previously it was going like clockwork, now we were out of contention and didn't think we would even make it to the last control. We asked each marshal at every control if they could spare us some petrol to no avail. Disaster was to strike once more before the night was out this time in the form of a fail. In our quest for petrol at one of the time controls I had become distracted and forgot to check my time card before leaving the control, the marshal had given us our time but not signed for it and we got a mile or so up the road before I noticed the lack of signature. That was it, game over, we limped into the last control having dropped 20mins alone on the second half and collecting a fail.
We finished a disappointing 24th O/A after what was looking like a top three finish on the most competitive road rally still running. It was my third attempt at the Briedden and the first time I have finished it. I will be back next year, hopefully in a team entry from Tavern M.C