What are we up to this year?

Mark Straker gives us the low down on his season so far

As you may recall, earlier this year Winscreen ran an article giving all Southern's competing members the chance to tell the club membership their plans for the comming season. So, following on from this Windscreen has caught up with Mark Straker's season.

Longcross (April 2001)

The first rally of 2001 saw the Darrian fitted with a new Steve Broughton Developments engine, giving a valuable improvement over the 2000 engine. With a top class entry, including Dave Jacobs, Paul Shelmerdine, Tony Janetta and 1999 National Champion, Chris Wood, this was going to be fun!!

As it turned out, the engine was cutting out two or three times a stage, sometimes with heart stopping consequences. After a crank sensor change at lunchtime, the situation improved, although the engine continued to cut-out on stages 6, 7 & 8. After the rally this problems was traced to the ECU.

Other than the engine problem, we had a trouble free day which saw us in 2nd overall going into the last stage, just 2 seconds behind Dave Jacobs.

Time for a all-or-bust effort and after the first lap we were apparently 12 seconds up on Dave Jacobs (as measured by an independent source!!), but he subsequently broke his transmission and we won by a fairly comfy margin of around 15 seconds.

Monteberg Rallysprint, Belgium (May 2001)

This was my first trip to Belgium with the car. Using closed roads, this was a great event, with the locals pouring out to spectate in their hundreds, if not thousands to drink beer and watch plenty of sideways action.

The stage itself was a fantastic 5 mile section of closed road, with a good mixture of fast and twisty sections. Unfortunately, after two good practice runs, we overshot a junction on the first of our three timed runs, losing about 15 seconds, but still setting a top 15 time !!

Our second run saw further disaster, with another, more dramatic overshoot coming down towards the start/merge 'T-junction'. Probably trying too hard (?!), braking too late, and with a missed downchange, we arrived at the junction way too fast, but managed to avoid the mountain of straw bales ahead of us, just jinking through an open gate (taking out both door mirrors!), through a field and into the spectators - we nearly reached the bar - end of rally.

Millbrook (May 2001) - NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP

"The Event" of the year, and my targets were set high. I was after 3rd overall, having finished in 5th place 12 months previously.

However, with 17 of the first 18 cars being 4WD WRC Imprezas, WRC Escorts and some serious Metro 6R4's, this was going to be hard work.

After the first stage I was delighted to be in 4th place, behind only John Indri (6R4), Melvyn Evans (WRC Escort) and Steve Hendy (Escort Cosworth). Crucially, we had beaten Jon Mercer, the likely 2001 National Champion, by 2 seconds.

The rest of the day continued in the same vein, although at lunchtime, with Steve Hendy having dropped time with a puncture, 2nd to 5th overall were covered by just 5 seconds, we were 5th, with Jon Mercer (6R4) 2 seconds ahead of us in 3rd place. Jon's car had been totally rebuilt by John Price in the seven days between Monteberg and Millbrook following a huge accident, so he was lucky to be even be at Millbrook.

On stages 5, 6 & 7 we set identical times to Mercer, so the pressure was on going into the final stage. We were still 2 seconds behind Mercer, but now in 4th overall after Melvyn Evans' retirement with gearbox problems.

Time for another all-or-bust effort then, and it paid off again. We took 2 seconds from Mercer, leaving us on identical times after eight special stages. We took third place on a National Championship Rally, due to having beaten Jon Mercer by 2 seconds on the first stage. Now, that's what I call close.

Longcross (June 2001)

Another "fill in" event before hopefully getting some multi-venue rallying in during the second half of the year, this rally saw an annual entry from Welshman Peter Lloyd (6R4) and also a distant entry from Scots, Tom & Steven Morris (6R4). Now, these Metros are starting to get on my nerves, they seem to be everywhere I turn, can't someone start a National Championship for under-powered 2WD cars!?

Anyway, the weather was scorching, and running the Dunlop "cut" slicks was becoming a real problem. It was clear at Longcross and Millbrook earlier in the year that, although the wear rate was not too bad with the "new for 2001" obligatory cuts, the performance of the tyres was significantly reduced. Understeer, followed by major oversteer was something which I never experienced in 2000 with full slicks! I think I now understand what it must be like to drive a Mk2 Escort in the forests!!!!

With the weather being so much hotter than at any time so far this year, the tyre performance was so frustrating. I just couldn't accelerate around corners without the back end wanting to step out.

By lunchtime we were second overall, 10 seconds behind the Welsh, and 10 seconds ahead of the Scots. This was clearly an unacceptable situation (the Welsh beating the English on home territory!) so, with the stages being reversed for the afternoon, SS5 seemed like the perfect opportunity for yet another all-or-bust effort. The stage was going well, I was trying to conserve the rear tyres by driving neatly, but coming out of the far end of "The Snake" we just got out of shape coming around a long, fast, left hand bend, and left the road whilst flat in 4th gear. The ensuing trip over grass, concrete road and backwards into a kerb saw us retire instantly, with the win going to Peter Lloyd...we'll have him next time!!!