On Thursday 16th November 1995, the Network Q RAC Rally held a test stage in Clocaenog Forest for the manufacturer teams taking part in the rally. Even taking Toyota's enforced absents this meant a total of 22 cars were eligible to take part. Although, despite all having paid fifteen hundred pounds to take part in the test stage, they didn't all turn up.
The stage was set up and marshalled by Knutsford and District Motor Club, our main tasks were organising the parking of service vehicles, checking the crews were all signed on, and no traffic entered the stage the wrong way. The stage was set up like any other stage i.e. with radio crews and service vehicles and as always a number of spectators had heard about it and made there way into the stage.
No timing was provided, if desired the crews could take care of this themselves, this also meant the cars didn't have to stop at the stop line at the end of the stage, this provided some fun late in the day.
The stage was 'live' for the crews between 11:00 and 2:30, so we had to be there nice and early to get a feel for the area in which the crews could service, to hopefully allow us to locate them in the best place for their needs. With the teams bringing service barges, trailers, rally cars, management cars, motor homes and recce cars, if all the teams had turned up it would have been a very busy service area.
Unfortunatly not all the teams did
turn up, however the following did arrive:-
Most disappointingly there were none appearances from Subaru, Renault and VW. The lack of McRae and Burns in the Subaru's was certainly noticed by the spectators.
So much for the introduction how about some information on what happened in the stage. Rui Madeira, the eventual Group N category winner on the rally, was using the test stage for his first experience of British forests which obviously paid off handsomely with the class win.
As the section of the forest being used was not part of the rally route, the crews had no pace notes, so were driving on sight at first and then from memory over the one mile stage on subsequent runs. Not that the stage had any particularly tricky sections to catch them out.
However true to the flying Finn legacy, Tommi Makinen went through without a reconnaissance run and apparantly got out of shape coming out of one of the corners and went ditch hopping down the next straight. I don't think the Mitsubishi mechanics would have enjoyed rebuilding the car for him in a couple of days!
Stig Blomqvist didn't look particularly pleased with the Skoda team after his first run through the stage saw an indicator lamp dangling off at the front of his Skoda. A result of build quality not his driving I hasten to add.
Fords sole works Cosworth, Thiry's rally car did not appear to be running smoothly snd the team seemed to be playing with the engine management system, until they went home.
The other Ford team with the RS2000 decided to leave their drama until late in the day, when after a gearbox change left them little time to run through the stage. Gwyndaf Evans was left with a few minutes to get as many runs in as possible, to achieve this he drove through the service area virtually flat out!
I Certainly enjoyed having the chance to be involved with another aspect of the RAC rally that ordinary club members don't normally get a chance to see. It also provided a chance to watch some of the World's top rally drivers in action, not just once but a number of times all on the same stage.
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