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WECC Millbrook National Rally - Sunday 27th May 2007 Brian Farminer / Amanda Jane Terry When we got up on Sunday it was raining, so not the best start to the rally weekend. We met Brian and Graham at Oxford and drove to Milton Keynes ready for scrutineering, we were very early and as we don’t like being first in the scrutineering queue we decided to go for a coffee to kill some time. I suggested IKEA ~ interesting with a rally car on a trailer! Unfortunately most of Milton Keynes had the same idea and the place was packed, we managed to get a table in the café and had coffee and cake. Then it was back to scrutineering. The scrutineer pulled the cut off switch and it didn’t but things got worse, he then tested the fire extinguisher and that didn’t work either! We were sent back out in the rain to sort it out. Graham soon found that the cable for the cut off switch was catching and sorted that out. The fire extinguisher proved to be more of a mystery Graham checked and double-checked but nothing was wrong. Dave arrived while all this was going on he had a nightmare journey and got lost in Milton Keynes! Graham decided to ask the scrutineer to check the fire extinguisher again he did and it still failed so Graham went for a second opinion! It was just as well he did as the other scrutineer passed it; the first one hadn’t been doing it right! That could have cost us big time as we wouldn’t have been allowed to start the rally and our entry fee wouldn’t have been refunded. Brian and I then went to the Holiday Inn at Newport Pagnell to sign on while Graham, Dave and Alan put the rally car back on the trailer and took it to our hotel. It was raining when we went to bed on Sunday night and guess what it was still raining at 6am Monday morning when we left the hotel! We had to go to Millbrook the long way round as rally cars are not allowed through the village ~ I guess the locals whinge! We chose our place in service, unloaded the car, put the trailer in the trailer park and took the car for a noise test. Brian and I had decided to do the recce run at 7.45am. It was good to see what we were letting ourselves in for, the place is awesome and it was hard to believe we were still in Bedford when we got out on the alpine route! We were doing the Clubman’s rally so didn’t do stage one and two. We joined in at stage three; our stage arrival time was 9.49 so we had a bit of time to kill! The weather was so awful we just sat in the Mondeo. Graham, Dave and Alan went off to get bacon rolls and coffee. The first stage was a bit of a nightmare for us. The car struggled for grip and the back was constantly trying to spin round to the front! I found co-driving from stage diagrams really hard as you don’t get any idea where the hills are, it really needs pace notes. I didn’t feel so bad when I found out it has been used for WRC, which is very much out of our league!! Several cars were in the barriers, which I found very off putting. I was not convinced I wanted to go out on the next stage but Dave said they weren’t letting anyone out so I thought we might as well. Brian and I discussed it and decided that the best thing to do was go for a finish in one piece ~ even if we were last! We decided to look on it as a practice for next year; it didn’t seem so bad after that. We went out on the second stage and had almost finished when the red flags were shown. In rallying you stop where you are! We had no idea what was going on.  A car had gone down one of the many sheer drops and rolled over the crash barrier, the crew were taken to hospital but were basically OK so had a very lucky escape. Stage three and four passed without incident for us but each time we went round there seem to be another car in the barriers! We had one spin right in front of us at a hairpin but Brian found a way through. It was still raining we had to have the car windows open to try and keep the screen clear. The first time we went through the water splash I ended up soaked, as it didn’t occur to me that the water would come straight into the car!! The next four stages were run in reverse. We soon found out that is actually the right way to run it and the whole thing seemed to flow so much better. I enjoyed the afternoon stages far more even though it was still raining! There was one interesting section where there was a hairpin left closely followed by a hairpin right. The exit from the second hairpin was straight onto a lorry slope with a very steep descent to a roundabout! I made a point of not going to see how we were doing overall as it was an achievement just to finish in those conditions and a lot of people didn’t. We finished 32nd. Not exactly earth shattering but at least Brian, my rally car and I are all in one piece and will be out to fight another day! We plan to do Millbrook again next year and are hoping for better weather, it would be hard to be worse unless of course it snows. The rally was well organised and even the big accident didn’t slow things up for long. The marshals did an amazing job in very difficult conditions. We plan to run with ‘Thanks for Marshalling’ on the back of the car next time we are out and about. As always thank you very much for your support. Our next definite rally is the Prom Stages in September but watch this space as we might try to fit another one in before that! Report presented by Amanda Jane Terry - Pictures by Rally Action Photography