Some Like It Hot

You will remember that the NoticeBoard in last month's magazine contained an appeal for marshals from Brian Hugh, with a guarantee that the weather for this Goodwood would be better than it had been for the RallySprint (see John Blaber's article elsewhere in this edition).

Now this is fighting talk. The weather at the WouldBeGood stages is usually guaranteed - to be absolutely rotten. But Clerk of the Course Colin Early had a new weapon up his sleeve - he'd moved the rally from its usual November slot back to August. Could the Southern Rain Gods rise to the challenge?

For a while on Saturday morning it looked like they were giving it a good go. Driving to scrutineering, we saw tendrils of ground mist, which got thicker as we approached Goodwood until we had to drive with fog lights on. Scrutineering took place in a cool damp haze. And then, as the time for first car away approached, the mist boiled away to reveal a cloudless blue sky. The paddock resembled an Its A KnockOut game as crews stripped off layer after layer of clothing. (No, Joe! Stop at that point!! Oh my God!!!) The three-man camera crew who were recording the event plainly thought that rallying was a most peculiar sport indeed.

It was, in that famous journalistic cliché, a Scorcher. The sight of six rally crews all trying to park in the shade of one 8' tall cherry tree was not one to remember without shuddering. Crews who had brought one of those trendy little pavilions suddenly became extremely popular. Even the camera crew's furry microphone started to sweat. And the rally doctors turned away from treating wrenched necks to concentrate on heat exhaustion and sunstroke.

The organising team had decided to expand the number of entries to 50, in the interests of commercial reality (ie running the event without making a loss - Goodwood charges an extra £1000 during August). This meant that some extremely tight timing would be required to comply with Goodwood's strict rules: no noise before 9.00am, an hour's lunch break from 12:30-1:30, stop on the dot of 5:00 and no more than 5 cars out on the track at once. The historic boys started first, smack on 9:00, with noise check held in the queue to the first control. But in the end the event had to be reduced to 7¾ stages to comply, with the organisers wondering if the tighter chicanes were causing cars to spend just too long out on the circuit.

The general feeling was that the course was interesting and well laid out. For those members who haven't visited Goodwood (can there still be any?!) there is really very little you can do with the layout as there are now no roads to use apart from the circuit itself. There are a few bits of concrete sticking out of the circuit for a couple of yards, but that's about it. But with clever use of tyres, tape, oil drums and lots and lots of cones, the team had constructed obstacles which included double chicanes, deep and shallow serpentine chicanes, a tightened racing line into corners, and a hairpin immediately after the stage start which was extremely popular with the spectators.

The organising team provided competitors with a tulip road book rather than the stage diagrams which are more common at single-venue events. Competitors' views on this varied as some single-venue maps are extremely inaccurate and can be worse than useless, but others found the tulips difficult to follow and the roadbook took the blame for a few items of bodywork damage.

As usual, Southern members were out in force on this event. Sue Smith presided over signing on, Chrissie Chorley ran the paddock, Ian Harden was on the start line and Paul Smith on the finish line. Colin Early was Clerk of the Course with Nick Jenkinson assisting and Rick Smith "in attendance". BP and Neil Boxall were kings of the equipment and Brian Hugh was Chief Marshal. Lesley Stapleton was... memorable as the runner for completed timecards. Marshals included the Weeks and the Strakers. And the New Unit (we'll have to stop calling it that soon) looked absolutely fabulous with its flags flying and with a noticeboard bristling with output from the excellent results service run by Marcus Underhill. The risk with a paragraph like this is that I will miss someone out so I apologise to everyone else who was there and hasn't got a mention.

WouldBeGood Stages - Competitor Roundup

Lots of Southern members were in the paddock, either competing or servicing. We had an impressive total of 12 cars out on the event, including some who joined on the day:

6 James Potter
was out navigating for Martin Wyeth in the Oakfields-sponsored whaletail RWD Cosworth, coming 5th overall and first in class 4.

7 Martin & Mike Owen
admitted frankly that they weren't going fast enough after the first two stages in their Mk II Escort, but picked up the pace to finish second in class 3 and 4th overall. They would have been first SCC crew but the class award took precedence.

16 Peter Raven
was observed being "quite committed" into the chicanes in his 205 Rallye and ended up 8th overall and 3rd in class 4.

21 Lee Earnshaw
was out with Mike Bedwell in his Alfa and doing very nicely until a max on SS8 demoted them to 38th overall.

27 George & Judy Matkin
were out in their (t)rusty Mini, a car so old that it is even exempt from road tax, with Jason Waterman helping in the paddock. On SS1 a broken fan belt led to water all over the screen and two offs - they were surprised to see the car behind them following! They were then doing well until a broken rotor arm on SS8 gave them a max and dropped them about 16 places to finish 37th overall.

34 Colin Hutchings
was out in Colin Early's Darrian, and doing a jolly good job of driving it. Nick Owen found the Hot Seat rather too hot in the Darrian's tiny cockpit but managed to stand his ground to the end of the day, although it was looking rather dodgy at several points. Colin found that driving is difficult when sweat runs down into your eyes all the time. Ian Torkington was wielding the spanners and cold sponges. They ended up 5th in class 4, 13th overall and first novice.

36 Graham Baty
was out in a smart Mark II Astra which is built by motor vehicle students. He has promised me a "My Car" article on it, so watch this space. He ended up 4th in class 1 and 27th overall.

39 Mark Shoosmith/Chris Morford
were on Mark's first ever event in his Mazda 323, aiming to qualify for an International licence in order to do the RAC in the Mazda's final year of homologation. SS2 saw them demolish a chicane but generally they had a good day, and importantly got a finish and a signature as well as 25th overall and 3rd in class 5. Their next outing is the Tamar Stages.

41 Neil Cloughley/Simon Catling
were out in the new lime green and yellow Fiesta. Pre-event preparation had been hampered by a last-minute change of service crew, so they had the dubious benefit of the Phillipsons' mechanical knowledge in the paddock. This proved sufficient to fix a fuel vaporisation problem which gave them a max on the first two stages, but nothing could fix a broken navigator's seat following a collision with one of the more inventively-placed chicanes. Ed's soapbox: This is the second time I have been with a car where a Corbeau seat broke. I have never seen another make of rally seat break. Comments from other members?

42 Jo Brand/John O'Donnall
were both out on their first event - another crew aiming for the RAC. They were under strict orders from Andy Gwynne, whose 1300cc 106 they were using, to start slowly and build it up. Their strategy nearly fell apart when someone mooned at them on SS2 and they almost demolished one of Brian's fine chicanes! Once team orders were lifted, they picked up the pace and took 22s out of their stage time. By the end of the day they were 39th overall and the proud possessors of an upgrade signature each.

46 Vanessa Linley/Joe White
were giving Ness' Nova a right what-for as they tried to shame the seeding committee's decision. They ended up with awards for first Southern crew (only for those who were members of Southern before regs were published) and first Lady Driver, with 29th overall and 6th in class.

50 George & Jane Anderson
were out in a rather unlikely rally car - a Ford Consul GT which looked to my untrained eye as though it would be difficult to get round corners. However, they said they had a fun day - enjoying the fact that the chicanes weren't as tight as on previous times. They ended up 32nd overall.

BUT...
We have one small whinge. I know that it was hot (good British understatement there) but a lot of people (me included) missed a perfectly good chance to get a Club Stores endorsement by not staying to help clear up. Time for everyone else to hang their heads in shame as I report that the only people clearing up the mountain of equipment were Brian Hugh, Brian Price, Neil Boxall, Paul Smith, Rick Smith, Sue Smith and Pat Smith, with Ellya Gold and Nick Jenkinson helping at Goodwood. This meant that they were working at Stores till 10:30. We only need a few of these people to decide that organising events is too thankless a task and we will be in deep trouble. Please do offer to help next time if you can.