Not only was the noise in the bar beginning to rise, but people began to filter into the results office to see where they had finished in the Astra Nova Challenge or, more recently, in the Peugeot GTI Challenge.
Keeping tabs on the performance of 120 or so cars over up to a dozen forest stages in one day is no mean feat. That's why Martin Liddle of Tynemouth Computer Services is normally a very busy and scarcely-seen individual during a British rally. But he's also the man most likely to know what happened to Joe Bloggs's Escort in SS2, how many road penalties have been incurred by car 26 and which was the fastest Peugeot 205 crew on SS6. But how does he do it? And what does the job entail?
People have taken the British rally results service for granted for years, but Liddle has been involved in the sport from grass-roots level for over two decades and started out as a competitor.
"My involvement in rallying dates back to 1965, but I suppose I was a better navigator than co-driver," says Martin modestly. "My first event was the Queen Mary College 12-car event, organised by London University, but I competed in many rallies in a variety of Minis of various descriptions."
Liddle's education and working career had kept him in the London and Cambridge areas until 1973, but a new position in engineering saw him move to the northeast, an area which remains home to this day. It was also through this link that he contested his last-ever rally as a competitor, finishing second overall with Dave Lewis in the 1981 Riponian Rally in a Ford Escort.
Back in 1973, Liddle had joined the local Tynemouth and District Motor Club and became involved in the organisation of the Lindisfarne Rally, a round of the RAC Championship--initially in a course car and then as competition secretary the following year.
In 1973, results of typical British rallies were all calculated manually, using card collection, a telephone and large sheets to work out specific penalties. Scrutineer Don Tarbet had been responsible for calculating the results on the Lindisfarne Rally, but Liddle saw an opening the following year and discovered that there was a computer time-sharing bureau in London, which could be accessed over the telephone using a low-speed modem.
"We looked at the situation and decided to give the system a go in October 1974. I envisaged a possible problem with communications and dreaded the unreliability of the people looking after the machines when we wanted to issue provisional results. The whole operation worked very well, although it took a great deal of effort to develop the crude software. It's amazing how simple it was then compared with now. Anyway, we reviewed the success of the operation and thought to ourselves, why just use this system once a year?"
Liddle, who was now working in electronics engineering during the week, decided to place a small story in the columns of Motoring News and the telephone began to ring. "We used the system on a little club event in Oxfordshire in early December and then I was contacted by Port Talbot Motor Club to help out on the Virgo Rally over the Epynt ranges at the end of the year."
At this point in time, the system was a non-profit-making venture: it was not cheap to access the computers in London and any surplus was taken up by Tynemouth Motor Club funds. Protests and queries would delay the results and eat still further into the profits.
But the system quickly began to grow by word of mouth and, by 1977, Liddle was awarded the contract for the entire Castrol/Autosport Championship. Both Bruce McMichael and Don Tarbet helped out on occasions, but at this point Liddle owned none of the hardware and had already been approached to run the results service on international rallies.
"Tynemouth were a little concerned about the risks of running the operation over a long period and I decided to take over the business. I began to buy equipment to access the mainframes and planned to buy microcomputers as soon as they became available. They had been in the US since 1977, but I acquired my first models in 1979, which meant that income from motor clubs was now going to be revenue for the business."
Until 1979, Liddle had written and updated all his own software, but the move to microcomputers meant that much needed rewriting. David James, now 42, was employed to assist in the growth of the operation and, for the next 10 years, both Liddle and his new recruit shared the task of updating the software. James is now responsible for updating software and making minor improvements to the system.
"The whole operation has grown at an alarming rate," enthuses Liddle. "In the mid '70s, the Manx Rally may have had two computer terminals in the press office and maybe one for the spectators. Now we're looking at 27 or 28 terminals in total on this rally. We own most of them, but manage to scrounge a couple here and there. Most of the equipment can be loaded into a very full Transit van and on a typical one-day national event one of us would hope to arrive at rally headquarters during a Friday afternoon."
Liddle or James will already have received full details of the actual event at this stage and will have programmed stages, bogey times, time cards, target times and penalties into the system. "The software has been greatly improved over the years and it doesn't take long to feed in this information. We use IBM PCs, running the UNIX operating system instead of the more usual MS-DOS. This is because UNIX offers better scope for using a greater number of terminals.
"We use the PASCAL computer language and our own proprietary software developed over the past 20 years. This is also used by Ron Jackson in the Motoring News Championship and by Brian Thompson in Scotland. The software was first rewritten for microcomputers in 1979 and again for UNIX in 1989, but we are continually developing requests and advice and have pages of recommendations. When we assisted Dave Whittock with the RAC Historic Rally, we developed the program to cope with the demands of scheduled timing."
Normally, Liddle or James will set up the results office, punch in any late amendments to the entry list or the timing of the event and ensure that all the terminals are wired up correctly. Liddle stresses that this is a job for several people on an event the size of the Manx.
"On a typical one-day rally, we'd receive a phone call from the first PC at around 10 am. A land line is preferable, but we've used mobile phones in the past, depending upon the terrain. The individual at the PC will feed us times in batches of 10 and these will be fed straight into the computer. Reverse seeding uses the same principle, but it just means that we don't show the overall classification at this stage. When all the times are in the system and the results have been calculated, the information is fed to the press access system. We will also take a print-out of the results and either fax or send them with a messenger to a PC for use by the competitors."
But things can go wrong. "There are instances when telephones don't work or you dial a number which should be manned by a PC and find a lovely old lady on the line who's never heard of the rally. But I've been very surprised. I assessed the element of risk back in 1974 and can honestly say that I've never worked on a rally where we've failed to get results out, although I remember a Tavern Motor Club event, where Martin Clark was clerk of the course, and we were still accessing the computer bureau in London.
"The building had experienced a water cut, because a working group had damaged a water main in London. The computer centre had a stand-by generator for electricity, but the machines were shut down, because computers those days generated a fair amount of heat and there was no water available for cooling. The system was shut down at 10 am and it was 3.30 pm before the main was repaired and the computer was up and running. The event finished at 4.30, so it was touch-and-go for a while!"
Liddle always takes a back-up system on events and has a spare computer and spare laser printers just in case there's a failure. Either of the main computers is capable of running the whole operation, but he admits that he and David James are quite adept at carrying out emergency running repairs. The only scenario he dreads is a power cut where the headquarters is without a back-up generator.
Tynemouth Computer Services has never professed to being the first company to pioneer a computerised results service, but Liddle is delighted with the success of the operation, which now caters for the Mintex National, Mobil 1/Top Gear (except for the Ulster) and BTRDA stage events. In addition, Liddle, 47, is involved in orienteering north of the border, the World Veterans' Championship and the continuous development of software, although he does recall that a system was developed by someone else as far back as the '50s!
"I've become so used to being away from home, often for 30 events a year in the early days. But now, David and I go to 16 or 17 events each on top of our full-time jobs. It's become a way of life. David was working on the operation full-time in 1989 when we acquired the UNIX programme, but we're continuously looking to improve the system. We cater for several languages on events such as the Manx, but the early German translations were not too good. The term 'special stage' appeared as 'theatre platform' when it was first translated into German!"
The results service continues to feed competitors, spectators and the press with accurate information--often only 20 minutes after the event has finished and the final check sheets have been returned. Delays can often occur on events like the Scottish, which may be based in Perth, with stages near Inverness.
"The single biggest advance over the last 20 years has been the automatic calculation of road penalties," says Liddle. "There are more classes than there used to be, but I'm always looking to better the system. It would be no fun unless we could become better and quicker. I would like to see a system of graphics to highlight certain aspects of the results and that is something we're looking at for the future."