Rally Rattlings

Another busy month has just passed with the highlight being the Inter-Association Road Rally. This year our neighbours the Association of Central Southern Motor Clubs had been chosen to host the event and they chose the well-established Nightwatchman Rally as the host event. As we cannot run large fields here in the South the event could not also be a championship round, so much effort was spent in attracting teams from all over the country and they were rewarded with ten three-car teams from the North, South, East and West of England as well as Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland to face the lanes of Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. Andy Coshan and I were part of the ASEMC team together with Martin Smith and PRAR, and Doug Kingsley and Ben Greenfield. We had good company in the form of Alan Sayers navigated by Bob Stoke of Croydon DMC who were amongst the few non-team entries allowed in at the last minute. Sevenoaks were well represented by the Marshals who turned out with Graham Child and daughter Josephine manning a Route Check and the merry bunch of Mick and Chris Rose, Bill Smith and Jason Mortlock at a couple of Time Controls – nice to see you all.
After our good result on the previous event Andy and I were looking forward to a night’s sport, but obviously the opposition was a lot tougher and this was represented by our seeding at number 25. Off we went from the start at the Holiday Inn at Guildford and after a bit of a run out we started the competitive bits, unfortunately, about five seconds before we were due to leave the Control a dear little old lady in her bogmobile came trundling past us and crept off down the lane ahead of us. ‘Bollards’ I muttered as we hurtled along behind her for about half a mile at 18mph, until she came to her house and we were off properly. This didn’t help our average for the first competitive section but we managed to scrape into the next Control with a couple of seconds to spare. Fortunately Andy was working really well and for the first six or seven sections we were able to hold our minute by the skin of our teeth until we reached the first Transport Section where we were able to get back to the beginning of our minute which takes a lot of the pressure off. By the first petrol halt we were still penalty free lying first equal with two others, Doug and Ben our teammates, being one of them. Off after a refill and we dropped our first penalty two sections on, where the route was defined by description, part of which was “Use only 1.45 miles of B road”. This should have put us into a white layby off the Broad, but Andy missed it and we dropped 20 minutes for missing the Route Check in the layby. On the next two Time Cards, Andy felt a bit knackered (I’m not surprised – he’d been working really hard with navigation which left me feeling sorry for all the ‘foreign’ crews who weren’t used to the hard stuff) and we dropped a further 16 minutes by the end of the rally, giving us a total penalty of 36 minutes. This was good enough for seventh place and our other team members did even better with Martin/PRAR coming second and Doug/Ben 5th, which gave the ASEMC team the title – yessss! This is the first time our Association has won this title so I’m still feeling absolutely chuffed about it – thanks Andy and the team.
The night before this all happened I’d been running our first 12-car of the season and we had a full turnout which was most satisfying. As there were likely to be raw beginners and some experts I provided an interesting route, slackly timed and two levels of navigation – beginners and experts – even the expert navigation was suitably straightforward but involved harder work and concentration. The usual ‘volunteers’ turned out to help. Hales Vaughan, Colin Shipway and Chris Scudder on TCs with Andy and Viv Elcomb closing and Colin Billings and I opening – thanks all. We were represented by Mark Dawson/Daren Hall, Mick and Chris Rose running on expert navigation and Jason Mortlock/Bill Smith, Chris and Gill Wise, Chris Rowedder/Alan Sayers, Andy and Angela Watkins and James Lawrenson/Lewis Wild all running as novices. I was pleased to see this many of you out to play and I hope you’ll all be back for the next one. Our expert crews both managed clean sheets as did two invited crews with the others faring variously well. Newcomers James and Lewis had a bit of trouble finding the route and were not seen at the finish but I hope they weren’t put off and one sad Croydon crew had a coming-together with a wall which neither survived, the wall fell down and the car lost all it’s oil as a result and failed a few yards further on – hopefully both are restored by now. The results are:
The performances of Chris and Gill and Andy and Angela were, despite their penalties, creditable as both females were unwell, Gill (despite whinges from son) survived a heavy bout of Mal de Navigateur to finish and Angela received more sympathetic treatment from her hubby as she was suffering badly from the cold/flu bug that’s doing the rounds at present – well done.
Now to the future! The Kent Rally (that’s the proper one which we’ve been running since 1961 – not this modern upstart you may have seen recently!) is being prepared and, as usual we’ll need the help of everybody – THAT MEANS YOU! The work needed is twofold, firstly the PRing of the residents along the route and this is being controlled by Iain Gibson (01474 873573 to volunteer – or to me) and, secondly, marshalling on the night and Chris Scudder is in charge (014747 03346). The date of the event is 16/17th February so put it in next year’s diary as soon as you get it and make a note in this year’s diary so you don’t forget – please.
Well that’s about it for this month – Merry Christmas to you all and we’ll have more fun in 2002 – especially if the dreaded F & M is laid to rest.

Chin
 
 

CREW	CLUB	MINS	FAILS	PLACE
Mark Dawson/Daren Hall	7oaks	0	0	1=
Neil Ayling/Andy Cattani	CDMC	0	0	1=
Mick Rose/Chris Rose	7oaks	0	0	1=
Roger McKenzie/Maria McKenzie	B18MC	0	0	1=
Lynne Buddle/Clive Buddle	BpMC	0	2	5
Chris Powis/Mark Stokoe	CDMC	0	18	6
Jason Mortlock/Bill Smith	7oaks	1	0	7 (1st Novice)
Chris Rowedder/Alan Sayers	7oaks	1	27	8 (2nd Novice)
Nick Powter/Glyn Williams	BLCC	3	7	9
Chris Wise/Gill Wise	7oaks	5	0	10 (3rd Novice)
Andy Watkins/Angela Watkins	7oaks	19	1	11 (4th Novice)
Philip Douce/Craig Douce	CDMC	DNF
James Lawrenson/Lewis Wild	7oaks	DNF

The Acorn : December Edition