I was always told that road rallying never died in Wales despite the efforts of the MSA so when John suggested doing an event I was definitely interested. He'd been trying to persaude me for some months to sit beside him in the yellow TVR but I've always been keen to actually get to the start of an event in one piece, let alone the finish. I always remember the old adage 'to finish first, first you have to finish'.
The experience of a Welsh road rally would be useful prior to the Inter- Association event in October and with a plot and bash format I thought we might be in with chance of a result. Starting from Llandysul and using maps 145, 146 and 159, the roads (so we were told) would be smooth and the terrain interesting!
Saturday lunchtime me, John and our trusty marshals Andy Juniper, Tim and Karen (interesting rule that, no marshal, no start!) loaded up the banana coloured Vixen onto the trailer (so we should at least arrive at the start) and trekked down the M4 to Llandysul.
With a full entry of 75 plus 10 reserves we were seeded at 28 amongst the Jones', Evans' and Morgan's and the TVR certainly attracted a lot of attention from the locals. There were throngs of spectators around the start as we unloaded the car and headed straight to the noise test to be greeted by the friendly noise official. Without a smile or cheery word such as "allo boyo, what you got here then, there's lovely" he waved his meter around and happily told us we'd failed at 110 dBA. When John, ever the diplomat, asked him if he knew how to operate a noise meter I knew the re-test was not going to be easy. Around the corner a couple of handy steel wool pads fell down the exhaust safely secured by a pin through the pipe so we returned to see our friend. Unfortunately as John wound it up to 5,000 (ish) the exhaust decided to spit the steel wool at the noise official. Ooh err! "Take it away and don't come back!" was his response.
Having thought about this predicament for a while the only difference between this and previous noise tests was the fact the car had been trailed so the engine was cold. A quick 5-6 mile blast around the lanes and back to noise where we were uncomprisingly refused a further noise test. "There are plenty of reserves and they all passed" he said, arms crossed, chin out, arrogant stance. Bad body language I thought.
I pleaded, cajoled and eventually persauded him to test the car for our own peace of mind, without grabbing him by the throat which is what I felt like doing. As John gave it five again I stood over our friends shoulder and this time we got 98 dBA. "Excellent! If you just sign the sheet we'll go off and get scrutineered." A complete refusal again so off we go to find the Clerk of the Course and WAMC Road Rally Coordinator. A deputation was formed and the noise official finally conceded. We're back in the event!
Signing on was a very slow process as queues built outside the showroom, however the proceedings were brightened up by John arriving in his flourescent orange overalls. Although we pretended we didn't know him he wouldn't go away.
There were a few Give Ways, cares, quiet zones and blackspots to plot plus spectator information but it didn't give me much indication of the route (oh for local knowledge). The navigation was all map reference plot and bash with the first half link sections and a couple of preplot sections given out as we left the start.
From Llandysul we had a 10 mile run out to SS1 and the route dropped onto 159 using the narrow three dimensional lanes above the A40. By SF1 we had dropped 7 minutes due to a major wrong slot 3/4 mile from the end of the section caused by navigator brain fade. An overshoot early in the 10 mile SS2 was followed by a good thrash up the fast sweeping road alongside the River Cothi so we managed to clean SS2.
After a short link through Brechfa to SS3 (pre-plot) we encountered the first rough white of the night and were caught by one of the local crews with a bit more ground clearance. Back onto the tarmac we kept up with him through the continous succession of 90's before catching him at SF3 (literally as the TVR kissed the back of the Escort in the control). One minute dropped.
SS4 saw us pass some crews busy plotting at the first junction but we were caught by one of them who took a tow and the red mist came down. Pedal to the metal (rather fibreglass) John held on to the Escort through the lanes. I was busy plotting when John called "Yump!" and I looked up from the maps to see a black void ahead followed immediately by the road, a shower of sparks from the Escort in front and a heavy crash on the sumpguard as we landed after flying a vicious brow. We were starting to reel him in and right on his tail when his brake lights came on and the Escort slid to a stop. It was one of those moments, you're closing fast, nowhere to go, not enough room to get by, life flashing before your eyes. As we braced ourselves for the crunch the Escort driver obviously looked in his mirror or heard us skidding for moments before the inevitable thud the Escort dived off to the left and we shot through between him and the hedge. John has the registration number locked in his subconcious memory. We backed up and negotiated the pointless grass triangle before going into SF4 one minute down.
SS5 we cleaned without incident (well not too many) and between SF5 and SS6 was the second noise test. We saw the familar silhouette of the noise marshal as he beckoned us forward to be tested. "Here we go again" I thought but we passed with a few sarcastic comments about the exact location of 5000 on the rev counter.
Lucky the noise test was before SS6 because the last section before halfway saw us lose the entire exhaust system. This short 2 mile section took us across various whites and two farmyards that made the Preston seem as smooth as a motorway. Despite a caution and suitably reduced speed we completely removed the exhaust system from the downpipes on a 6" step up from a field onto the final stretch of tarmac. The TVR growled into SF6 about 400 yds down the road exhaustless and two minutes down having missed white slots into fields twice (oops!). It's a pity the noise marshal wasn't there, we would have made his night.
John jumped out and ran back up the road to recover the exhaust and as I peered into the darkness an eerie scraping and shuffling noise could be heard, it was John hopping and kicking the exhaust down the road. What followed next could be used as a new game for "It's a knockout". The rules are simple:
Two people must carry a red hot exhaust 400 yards without using their hands. The navigator wraps a cloth, preferably a handkerchief, around one end of the exhaust like a sling while the driver hops on one leg supporting the opposite end of the hot exhaust with his other foot. Giggling is compulsory.
The sight of us arriving back at halfway in Llandysul with six foot of exhaust sticking out through the sun-roof certainly drew the crowds. There were offers of help, like "Let's roll on it's side so you can get at the exhaust". No thank you. The garage proprieter was pursuaded to open up his workshop and we soon had the TVR up on the ramp and various people set to removing the broken mounts. As luck would have it the garage was also a Unipart stockist so had the requisite bits of rubber for putting the exhaust back on.
All of this was eating into our lateness with 11 minutes dropped plus "Jeux sans frontiers" in the first half and only 30 mins available at petrol we were under pressure. I booked out as John fueled up with 3 minutes to spare. Down on time but not yet out we're all set to go until John accidentally ripped the Poti wires out of the plug. Ever had that feeling it was not going to be your night?
Now definitely OTL it was "Shall we carry on?" time. No question, we'll keep going. Blatting down to SS7 we booked in just inside OTL and set off flat out until 3/4 mile into the section where we went 90 left into slot tight hairpin right. Unfortunately the lock on the TVR wasn't quite enough to stop us smacking the front nearside against the unrelenting Welsh rockface on the outside of the hairpin right and it was a spectator point too! Oops!
At SS8 we found AJ, Tim and Karen but were now OTL, so after some hasty repairs we decided to cut route and found SS10 with about 5 minutes to spare. Great let's continue. SS10 was a 5 miler taking in the Pantdafydd white which is about 2 miles long with a deep ford with steep exit (cautioned) followed by a hillclimb out. We went into the ford and somehow lost all drive, the engine was running but we weren't moving, lots of revs but no power! It looked a bit wet outside to me with the water flowing deep and fast but eventually John persauded the TVR out of the ford and it spluttered all the way up the hill missing, popping and generally well out of sorts. By SF10 we were 12 minutes OTL and this time decided to pack up before anything more expensive went wrong. You need to know when you're beaten and believe me I've had plenty of experience this past year. This extends my run of non-finishes on road rallies to 9 months and 5 events. Anyone need a reliable navigator?
When the results finally arrived I discovered
that despite everything we had been 11th
O/A at halfway. It's just a pity the gods were conspiring against us, hopefully
next time we'll get have a bit more luck.
Roger Davidson