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Rally Of The Midlands - Friday 22nd, Saturday 23rd & Sunday 24th June 2007 Simon Stevinson / Neil Mukerji Well, that was different !!! Single venues are all well and good, but this multi-venue effort was a different ball game. From arrival in the area on Friday lunchtime, I've not yet really had the chance to switch off - the old brain is still buzzing now. My first job was to get the car to scrutineering on time. Which I did, except I forgot that we'd need to get it off the trailer first. Fortunately we had the time to get to the trailer park, lose the trailer and van, and get back to scrutineering. We got through that okay, and got through documentation, collected our notes, route plans and stage maps, and I remembered to synchronise my watch with the official clock. However, I forgot to check our start time, which caused a bit of stress later. We had a bit of spare time to return the van to our hotel (trailer in the trailer park). Friday evening held only one stage, a spectator special in the Hinckley council office car park; only three-quarters of a mile long. Drivers and co-drivers were allowed an hour to walk the stage first, and notes weren't provided for this stage. This is unusual, but this stage was extremely small, tight and complicated, more like an auto-test than a traditional stage, and there's no doubt that nearly everyone would have gone wrong without being allowed to walk it. Severe stress then followed while we worked out our start time. SS1 was run in reverse seed order (this didn't matter because the stage was always cleared before the next car ran). We were seeded 30th from 59 cars. While we waited, Diane got busy with the camera in the car park. We had a reasonable enough go at the stage. We came 35th equal, but only four seconds behind the fastest car, which is more than okay for a day's work. The car had to be returned to 'Park Ferme' - a secure parking area where all cars were held overnight, and where no access to the cars, especially for servicing, is allowed. Friday evening was spent trying to make sense of the time-card malarkey, and the thick book of Colin McRae (or perhaps more appropriately, Nicky Grist) style pace notes. Saturday morning Lee Sawdon turned up to man our services. This man was to become an extremely welcome sight! He dropped us off at Park Ferme for our allowed entry time, and set off to set up our service area. We had to clock out of Park Ferme at our allotted time, exact to the minute. This applied to our whereabouts across the entire weekend, severe penalties for earliness, and lateness would be inconvenient to say the least. We had to drive into Hinckley for a ceremonial start, and then make our way to Mira for SS2. It was my job to know where we were, where we were going, and when we had to be there. Then, having got there and clocked in (to the minute), I had to switch mode: road notes away, stage notes out, helmet on, sense of self-preservation disabled. SS2 was the longest stage even Simon had ever encountered, some 16+ miles. It went on forever. I lost my place in the notes regularly. The front tyres gave up eventually, yet Simon's patience didn't falter. On SS2 we came 44th, dropping our position at that point to 40th. Not great for car 30, but we were learning - and fast! From the finish line it was mode change: helmet off, road maps out, and away to the service area via a petrol station. We'd basically munched our front tyres, and so were relieved to arrive at service. While waiting for our alloted entry to service minute, we were given some provisional results. They'd given us a stage maximum for SS2, due to an error (by timing official) on our timecard (they presumed we messed up the split, we didn't). This was more stress - we got it overturned, but it was a pain. In the service area Lee was in high spirits. We'd told him about our tyre problems by 'phone and he was ready with a new selection. We had 40 minutes service time, which I spent pouring over the time cards and maps while feeding myself. 40 minutes goes quickly, and before long I was nagging Simon and Lee to get us out of the area on time. Road mode: out to Mallory for SS3 and SS4 - identical stages back to back. On SS3 we came 38th in the field, which brought our total place to 38th too. On SS4 we came 36th in the field, which brought our total to 35th. Not brilliant, but we were still learning. Then straight back to Mira for another epic stage (SS5). This went more smoothly, we came 21st, upping our overall to 24th. The new tyres helped, and I managed to get quite handy with the notes, meaning that Simon could concentrate on driving without co-driver or machine retardedness. Mode switch: back to service. More food and note/map inspections for me. The new tyres had melted - but Lee found bigger problems. The engine had bust both of its mounts. Now thinking about it, we'd made a bit of a 'cut' at Mallory that resulted in a huge BANG, which could well have been the S50B32 departing. With no spares available, we had no option but to carry on and to try to be gentle. Service over, straight back to Mallory for another two stages, this time in reverse. SS6 saw us come 30th, yet we increased our overall standing to 22nd. SS7 saw us come 29th, and increased our overall standing to 21st. This may not make sense, but it all depends on times, not places, and also, depends on which cars who were beating us were retiring. And there were, fortunately for us, quite a few. But no time to think about this now, hell no. Helmets off, back to Mira, to the minute, for the final stage of the day, SS8. We knew the engine was moving around quite a lot. In the start control, helmet and comms on: "s**t, we've not much fuel Neil". Handy. 5,4,3,2,1 Go and 100 to merge, hairpin left to 3 right tightens. Low fuel for a 16-mile stage. The moving engine was suddenly less urgent. The stage was going alright until around three quarters of the way through when we suffered fuel starvation on a long right-hander, and it started to rain. Forced to drive in eco-mode we managed to complete the stage on vapours, reserve light very much on. The engine had beaten up the screen wash reservoir as it boogied around its bay, and we had come 27th, just maintaining our 21st place by 14 seconds. Somehow we got to a petrol station and then returned to service. Lee levered the engine back to place, and attempted to improvise a way of keeping the fan out of the radiator. We'd finished our stages for the day, but duties weren't over: we clocked out of service and clocked into Hinckley town centre for the ceremonial finish. Then back to park Ferme, where Diane collected us, and we returned to service to help Lee pack down and we all returned to HQ. At this point we knew we were 21st overall, and that was to be our running position on the Sunday. Sunday was more of the same. Park Ferme to a 12-minute service in which we elected for knobblies given the monsoon like conditions. Then to Merevale, a nasty little venue full of vicious speed bumps, which we could only crawl over due to our bust engine mounts. We lost serious time here, coming 35th on SS9 and SS10. This might not sound so bad, but 20 cars had retired on the Saturday, meaning that was 35th from 39. Still, as they were short stages we only dropped to 22nd overall. Then back on the road, this time to Bramcote barracks, a tarmac venue where we and our knobbly tyres performed like heroes: massive oversteer everywhere. Not that fast, but a whole lot of fun! We came 30th both times on these stages, and our overall placing remained the same. Once again on the road to Arbury. We were queuing to the time control zone when it became apparent there was a delay. Diane was spectating, and confirmed that there'd been a nasty crash. It turned out that these two stages (SS13 and SS14) were cancelled. So back to our final service; 30 minutes to put on cut slicks for the drying conditions, re-fuel, and get some food and drink in us. Then out for a repeat of the morning. Merevale again hurt us with its bumps, but the drop out rate was on our side, and I imagine some others had received penalties, so our positions of 27th and 26th saw our overall improve to 20th. Then back to the barracks where Diane was now spectating, and despite my worst navigating of the weekend we came 29th and then 19th, maintaining our 20th overall. Finally we returned to Arbury to see if it'd run. It was running, and we were one car away from starting, when the marshals frantically stopped the car in front due to a crash in the stage. A tow truck was sent in, and we suffered a 35-minute delay. It then re-opened, and we were off. It was fast and narrow, with an almighty jump (actually labelled 'double caution jump' in the notes), which of course we had to limp over in order to keep the engine under the bonnet. We did alright though coming 24th. We ran through it a second time for the final stage of the event and did much better. As we finished we were asked if the cattle grids were okay for us. We said they were. Turns out one broke, and the stage stopped behind us. How lucky were we! Not only did we not fall into a cattle grid, we also set a good time, and the rest of the field weren't able to run it and their notional time was slower than ours. We came 12th in SS20, and finished in 19th overall. But it wasn't over then. We had to return to Nuneaton town centre for a ceremonial finish. So that's a good finish: for a field of 59, seeded 30th, result of 19th. A combination of factors got us there: Lee was invaluable in keeping the car going, Simon provided reason and ability throughout, but full marks to the car for its complete refusal to quit, even with knackered tyres, no engine mounts and a half wit navigating. To conclude, in order to do well in these events it's not just about going fast. The two main things were not breaking down, and not receiving any penalties - and for that the whole team has to perform. Report by Neil Mukerji. Pictures by Rally Action Photography