6 Days in February

Hard Graft is what it takes, setting up for Rallye Sunseeker - continued from last month

Saturday 24th February

Breakfast at 5am and then drive to the forest as soon as possible. Michael and myself get to the gates of Ringwood South at just on 6 o'clock. We set up the start of the stage 5, at junction 1 we un-hitched the trailer and park it out of the way. All the brushwood that has been collected during the earlier part of the week is pulled accross the junctions. This blocking off the junctions and all footpaths must not be done until the day of the event.

We then work our way through the stage as fast as possible as our ready time is 09:15. This sounds like bags of time but when we have to put safety tape over the play apparatus in the adventure area, orange netting and tape on these particular foot paths, box junctions at various other junctions, boards and arrows to be fixed to the stakes already in place the time flies by.

Half way through the stage we meet the Deputy Stage Commander and he very kindly offers to pull the brushwood in to position for us.

We get to the end of the stage and I think to myself we have done it! Michael reminds me about the intercom wire for the finish timing, thank goodness he though of it. Unreel the wire down the side of the track, 250 to 300 yards of wire so it's quite heavy.

There are not any marshalls at the stage finish yet, so I leave the intercom headset hanging on the 'STOP' board. Luckily I know the person on radio duty at the finish and ask him to keep an eye on the headset as I don't want it to go walkabout.

All that reamains now is to drive round the main road back to the stage start to meet up with our Stage Commander, but it's quite some way by road so we have to get a move on. We meet Matt Fowle and give him some spare bits and pieces for repairs to the stage and he agrees he is happy with the stage set-up.

I now explain to him and the radio car at the start that I want to collect our trailer at junction 1 and then drive to junction 19 where I will pull off the stage in order to start work on the afternoon stage. This is agreed and off we drive.

Again our radio comes in very handy, we receive a message asking for an extra box junction at junction 17. We make up this safety box at the double, run here - run there as we now have the Deputy Clerk of the Course behind us.

Onto junction 19 and we turn off the stage as arranged. At this point a mild form of relief comes over me just as over the radio comes a frantic message from Neil, asking where the hell the headset for the finish intercom. I explain that it's hanging on the 'STOP' board and I had asked John in the radio car to keep an eye on it so it should be there. Neil is happy with this. Suddenly it struck home, through the haze in my head, where a brain ought to be, I've got a second headset in the Land Rover. It must be for the other end of the intercom wire and not just for the afternoon stage.

Get on the radio to Neil; "Rover One to Southern One, Neil do you want two headsets at the finish?", "YES" replies Neil. "Whoops - sorry, I've got the second one with me at junction 19, I'll get it to the finish somehow!"

I managed to persuade one of the spectators to ride down the stage on his mountain bike to deiver said item, and return to junction 19 where he had left his two sons. All this well before the competitors started the stage. I thanked him with a Sunseeker baseball cap.

Sorry for that panic Neil, but I am as they say "A 42 carrat plonker!"

Michael and myself now set up part of stage 11, as much as we can while stage 5 is being run. We also remove the jockey wheel from the trailer, this enables to open the rear door of the Land Rover with the trailer still attached. We can now get to the boards for stage 11 via the door and the stakes and boards from stage 5 can be thrown into the trailer.

At least now we can have our lunch while watching some of the cars come through.

We are now approaching the hardest part of the day, turning the stage 'round. We have one hour and twenty-five minutes to carry out this task, a stage that is a mere 4.5 miles long and contains some 19 junctions, you have to run everywhere.

As the course closing car comes through stage 5 we follow on and go to the stage finish, this then becomes the start of stage 11. Neil meets up with us and offers to move the straw bales by the junction at the golf course and then put the boards out for the stage finish. This help comes as a great relief.

The marshals doing the finish reel in the intercom wire and take it to the new finish, another job out of the way, thankfully.

By working our way through the stage at the double andwith no panics this time the turn round is completed well in time. Mind you, we were both very warm at all this running about.

We dismantle the stakes and boards from the morning stage while the cars exit stage 11, until that is car 34 comes out with a ruined front wheel and tyre, Roger and Nicholas soon had the wheel changed and we agreed to take part of his rear bumper with us in the trailer.

The afternoon stage finished just after 16:00hrs. We then started off back into the stage clearing up, some of the equipment had been stacked up in piles but most had been collected by some of the marhsal crews, including Matt and Kevin who had some of the gear in thier cars. This sort of assistance at the end of the day is a grat help. We drove round both stages, moving brushwood here and there and collecting a few stakes, boards and arrows. We then arranged with Paul, Joe and Russ over the radio that when they had finished clearing their stage they would come over and help take down the netting at the golf course. This was completed in the dark, but this year the netting was packed away dry! First year ever!! We all departed from the forests for today and drove back to the Sherwood Hotel to off-load some of the equipment.

Michael also escaped, to go home at this point as he was competing in an event on Sunday. So back to the sea front with the trailer to help clear up the first and last stage of the event. Everyone joins in moving metal barriers back to the fly-over. Paul collects the cones on the road over the fly-over and all the orange netting is packed away. It is all but cleared away when Neil announces that if we are not all back to the hotel by 22.00 we all miss dinner. The trailer is very quickly loaded with the tyres borrowed from Quick-Fits and yes they are all there, sorry Mr Manager I couldn't loose any. I arrive at the hotel just after ten o'clock, quick wash of the hands and into dinner. Five o'clock breakfast to ten o'clock dinner is a long day by any standard. Last instruction for today, breakfast in the morning is at 07.30 am.