Home I Video I Guestbook I Links I Reports I Calendar I Contact

Rockingham Stages - Saturday 8th - Sunday 9th December 2007 Sian Tidley / Hywel Tidley After what seemed like a very long break from rallying, our last event being the Rally of the Midlands back in June, we were really looking forward to this event. The weather forecast looked , well wet and it wasn’t wrong! We  arrived at the venue on Saturday morning to set up camp in service , no sooner had we got the shelter erected the heavens opened. It continued to rain more or less constantly unitl around 4.00pm  and this made for interesting conditions during the Saturday afternoon and evening (stages 1 to 4).  Sian arrived at Rockingham with the bad news that she had been made redundant from her job at Research Subaru the day before. Credit to Sian for setting this to one side and focusing on the rally. We passed through scrutineering with no problems and got the car readied. Stage one arrival soon came around and 5,4,3,2,1 GO we were off. Oh dear! Owing to my wildly wrong selection of rear tyre compound we ended up spinning six times on stage one, loosing over two minutes on our expected stage time. Sian did well to get us to the end of the stage without actually getting a stage max having run off ont the grass, which for those that did mean’t recovery was the only option so wet were the conditions. Stage 2 very wet! We arrived back in service and I was reminded that it was my tyre selection ! Anyway we put the problem behind us and focused on a couple of Bacon sandwiches and a cup of tea ( cheers Mary!). With the correct selection of tyre on the rear the car actually handled in the wet conditions. Although we were way off the pace having lost so much time on stage one we were determined to give it our best shot.  We were lying 87th o/a at this stage and it was all beginning to look like a very long uphill battle type of event. You start to think that dark forces are working against you! As we settled into the next stage (3) in the dark we were now feeling as though we were on the pace and clawing some time back on our  fellow class 2 competitors. Passage Control  end of stage 3 Owing to an off and the Rockingham curfew of 6.00pm we did not get the chance to run stage 4 and were given a notional time , which we were disappointed with as we both felt we could have improved a little and given our position every second saved was important. Hey ho that’s rallying though! Sunday morning soon came around at we were at stage start, focused on th job in hand. We had a reasonable run, getting into the groove, and stages 6 and 7 ran without drama our climbing steadily up the field to around 74th at this point. The car ran without a hitch, tyres were performing well and everything was coming together well. However with limited stage mileage left it looked unlikely that we would be able to make a significant impact on anyone other than those running immediately in front of us. We decided to focus our attention on learning the new suspension and transmission set up , together with the new brakes. As Sian found grip she didn’t think we had and brakes which were much better than anticipated  Sian was able to set some good stage times toward the end of the event. We finished a disappointing 65th overall, but did learn a lot about our re engineered car. Many thanks as always to the Organisers and Marshals , our fellow competitors and of course our service crew for keeping us on the road. Especially the rapid repair to the intercom   between stage 5 and 6, thanks guys! At speed on stage 8 A big thanks to Andy Baker ( AB Motorsport), for all the hard work put in on the 205, it does exactly what it says on the Tin!. Finally a special thanks to Ben Burt and Ian Hamer who, having expired on the start line of stage 7,  were allowed to continue in the event in a non competitive status. Ian offered to run behind us to pace Sian and its surprising what a good turn of speed  you can get out of a 1600 205 when you are being chased by a 270bhp mk11 Escort!!!  Cheers chaps! Looking forward to seeing you all out on the Heart of England Events in 2008, in the meantime have a Peaceful  Christmas and a  good 2008! Sian, Hywel and all the RED DRAGION RALLYING CREW. Report presented by Hywel Tidley. Pictures by Rally Action Photography