Rally success- well almost!

Dr S

Old School Grand Master
Hi petrol headed ones.
Thought I would give a brief post event report on our first proper event of the year (late start this year as we are missing some rounds of the historic series)
It was my first event in our new Enduro spec Peugeot 106 Rallye, that new that it wasn't ready in time :oops: Car was cobbled together last week as well as we could get it in such a short amount of time. Then broke a driveshart on the way to a testing session on Thurs evening. Mad rush on Friday got the right shaft at the 3rd attempt, car was finished about 11pm.
So we set off up to the Scottish Borders in heavy rain at 5 am on Sunday morning having driven the car for 4 miles on the road. Not ideal for sure.

Well to cut a long story short- we didn't win but we were not far off. It was a funny old day. Seeded last on the road in car number 80, tests were very rough and incredibly slippy and braking into the first corner i knew we had fucked up not fitting some proper tyres. In fact we really struggled, we had 5 spins and an overshoot in the morning and then engine started getting hot and began to rattle a bit.
I was a little rusty and my new navigator, a Journo from one of the magazines made a few little errors that cost us a few seconds here and there. I made a few more silly mistakes, add in the crappy weather and things were a little quiet on board as we headed for the lunch halt.

We got to the lunch halt to find Clerk of Event waiting to see us with the eligibility scrutineer, they wanted to see the car and lots of people were looking at us and nodding and pointing- I got a little paraniod to be honest.

Turns out we had benefited from the manky conditions to take a 4 second lead overall against all the big stuff! Some top car and driver combo's were behind us- we couldn't take it in at first!
Pressure was now on in the afternoon but engine started to get sick so we backed off but a little too much. We set a few fastest times again but got swallowed up by some of the more powerful cars on the faster tests as it dried out.
We finished 2nd in the dreaded regularity section which put us back up the order- much to our amazement (we lost only 3 seconds over 15miles!) we are usually pants on regularities. Then it went tits up.

The very last test was our undoing, I missed a turning, spun, clipped a wall and took a maximum time which dropped us about 37 seconds. It was a shame as on the penultimate test we had set our 4th fastest time of the day!
Then at the finish someone posted a protest over the regularity results- basically there was an error in the instructions which only about 15-20 crews spotted. The regularity result was scrubbed dropping us another 26 seconds advantage over our nearest rivals and down to 7th overall, 4th 'modern'and 1st 1300cc out of 79 starters. I was a bit more than pissed off as we missed out on second modern, first in class and 5th overall just because of that stupid spin on the last test. Still, it was quite a giant killing performance for a 1300cc car ;)

Car made it back home but needs a lot of work for the next round in June. Brakes were inconsistant, gear ratios were crap between first and second, tyres were garbage, i was not much better. the only good part- the motor- is knocking like a good un this morning..........Better luck next time!

We will be back :p

Dr S
 
Sounds like you had an eventful...er... event!

Not too bad though all things considered I guess.
 
nice one mate would love top do some more motorsport sometime soon been looking at rally setups damn thats an expensive game!
 
cool as bud,only form of motorsport me n the xr will do is rwyb's and track days,would love to compete but would never be able to finance it :cry: ,all the best for the rest of the season :D
 
billinjah":3ia80fh4 said:
nice one mate would love top do some more motorsport sometime soon been looking at rally setups damn thats an expensive game!

Not always buddy- we're doing this project as a magazine feature on how cheap rallying can be. We will have the car stage rally legal and competetive for less than £2,500. Then we will show how to get sponsorship, do a championship and flog the car at the end of the season to hopefully break even. A years worth of thrills for nowt!
That said, some of the money spent on RB could do a season in the WRC :LOL:

S
 
really a prepped car for under 3k? interesting my dad is always on about it he wants to be co driver :twisted: might have to give some serious thought for next year.
 
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