Competition Round-Up

Richard Phillipson maintains class lead on Plains Rally

As my intended navigator could not do the Plains I had a stand in and we never really clicked. Our first stage together was more miss than hit.

The stages were very rough and did not seem to have been regraded since the Welsh and I think I was unduly cautious about punctures.

The Red Dragon Bites

Whilst driving the Team Spirit Rallysport Peugeot up to Wales I noticed a severe lack of power from Bertie, so much so that it was like driving my 106 diesel. On the Saturday morning Bish investigated and put the problem down to the second choke not opening, two split HT leads and an oiled up plug!

Stage One: A slow time here, due to still having a lack of power, which made 4th & 5th gear useless. The long straight bits were taken flat out in third and the hairpins in first, which I have never had to use before except on the start line.

We dragged ourselves over to Stage 2 as the exhaust started to blow again. About 5 miles in the intercom cut out and then came back again. Another mile and it cut out again and Ian resorted to hand signals. Finally about a mile from the finish we had one of those rallying moments!

Coming downhill through a series of fast corners, I managed to get a bit untidy approaching the last right and a combination of events meant that we didn't make it!

I thought I heard Ian shout 'Right two.' when he actually said 'right five….INTO….. The five I had missed without the intercom, consequently we were going too fast. But we've been here before! I tried to get the car a bit more sideways and boot the throttle and let the Yoko's do their stuff. Like they have many times before. But this time there was no power only understeer, which meant that we went wide. Unfortunately on the outside of the bend was a five-foot deep ditch with a stream running through it. The thing I noticed was how quietly we slid down the bank onto our side, then a bang as we finally ground to a halt. Now, many times before Ian has looked out of his side window and seen all manner of things, such as trees flashing past, the track coming at him, the track going away from him, even squirrels and spectators diving for cover. This time however, he had a very muddy stream running past it! It took him a couple of seconds to realise what had happened, then he looked down at his feet. I also noticed a strange looking black and white box down there, which at first I thought was the Terratrip. It was in fact the battery, which had leapt out of its box behind my seat and clouted the side of Ian's head in passing. Now I know why he looked a bit dazed!

We pulled ourselves out of a very sorry looking Bertie and I surveyed the damage while Ian ran off to the radio car to report we were okay! From what I could see we had a broken windscreen, nearside headlight, wing, passenger door and glass.

We had to wait about two hours for a winch out. Once back on four wheels, Bish connected up the battery, this time making sure all the clips were secure. Bertie fired up okay and I drove slowly out of the stage checking the steering and the brakes.

Finally, at the lay-by outside the stage I called the RAC to get us home. It took about 4 hours for them to arrive as it was a bank holiday, then to put the icing on the cake we had a thunderstorm and it chucked it down!

Many thanks to Bish, Simon C, Brian Price and all those other soggy people who helped us out of the ditch and also to the RAC for getting us home.

Another Broken Drive Shaft

Red Dragon Stages 29th May

It's just as well Jeremy Boyland, who won N3 on this event, isn't BTRDA registered or I'd be pig sick.

Reunited with Brian Cammack in the navigator's seat, we were quickly on the pace and leading the Group N runners, taking one second per mile off the Civics.

Twenty yards into the longest stage of the day at 15 miles, a drive shaft broke. By this I do not mean the C.V. joint; I mean the metal shaft! So we drove 15 miles on one wheel drive and lost three minutes!

After getting repaired on the road, I was a bit fired up going into the last stage putting in the 7th best F2 time– only 7 seconds behind Steve Black in the golf kit car that Alistair Mcrae had last year, less than a second per mile!

Southern Crew win class on Kerridge

Two Southern Teams Contest Miglia Quadrato

On a fine Saturday night in May, two teams from Southern Car club met in an italian restaurant near Smithfield Market in preparation for the evening's competition. Chris Dymond had Rick Smith as Navigator to plot the 60 map references and guide him round the City of London with Sue Hines and Pat Smith as spotters for the clues. Paul Smith had Graham Davey on the maps with Sue Smith, Chrissie Chorley and Chris Morford as spotters.

In the restaurant there was a heated discussion as to the format of the evening. Eventually a compromise was reached, they would have both red and white wine with the meal.

Shortly before midnight all the 54 crews assembled in Smithfield Market and on the hour the map reference sheets and clues were handed out. The experienced crews plotted them all before setting off whilst others plotted a few and disappeared into the night.

It took Graham about 20 minutes to do the plotting and select and plan a route that would allow us to make maximum use of the five hours allowed.

The clues were normally names or dates but could even be serial numbers on the glazing on shop fronts but were always within ten yards of where the map reference plotted. As several crews were always searching at the same location there was a lot of bluffing to be done and also one had to resist the temptation of jumping up and down when one found a clue. Usually if anyone was near you, you walked away and pretended to find it somewhere else.

The clues were graded as easy, medium and hard. Strangely Paul's team found more of the hard ones than the easy ones.

The event is great fun to do but a little strange. The sight of 20 people walking around a statue outside St Paul's at 2 am pointing torches at the railings bemused passers-by.

After 5 hours the event finished in Finsbury Circus, but it was disappointing to find no burger van. Chris Dymond's team had collected 27 clues whilst Paul's had 42 and finished the evening 7th equal