How on earth did I end up sat in a Tour of Mull class winning 1600cc Toyota twin cam powered Ford Anglia, about to navigate about 100 miles of tricky and very quick stages around the Rockingham Motor Speedway, when I’d never even sat in the co-driver’s seat of a rally car?

I was due to compete in October on my first event, based at the 3 Sisters kart circuit near Wigan, with Jim ’Noddy’ Holder in his Formula 1000 Nissan Micra. This has a few corners, a bit of camber, a bit of kerbing but nothing to really panic about. Absolutely perfect for someone whose last practical experience of navigating was orienteering at High School. And it would have been perfect, had we got our entry in on time.

Thus was learned the first lesson of co-driving: get the entry in early!

Earlier in the year, Thane MC had announced the inaugural Rockingham stages and a lot of the F1000 boys decided this would be a great end of season bash, and a rare opportunity to compete within Britain’s fastest race circuit. This is where alarm bells should have started ringing – instead however, the only thought I had was ‘FEVER – I can do that’. The rally was announced as using parts of the banked oval, the infield race circuit, the pit lane, inner paddock, the spectator parking areas and, most excitingly, the paddock access tunnels.

I was given a contact for Mike Storrar from Wolverhampton, a veteran pedaller of 25 years and Tour of Mull regular. Mike had been running with novice co-drivers for each round of the F1000 championship in his RWD Toyota Starlet. One quick call to Mike, and another to the Entries Secretary and we were in.

When I arrived in the service area on the Saturday to report for scrutineering (and to meet Mike for the first time) two things became apparent. We were instead running in the more powerful Anglia, and secondly it wasn’t running properly. Not a good omen, and a potentially short end to a possibly glittering co-driving career. But with 10 minutes to spare the faulty connection to the engine management was fixed, and we went through scrutineering.

Looking at the road book, I realised that this was going to be substantially tougher than a 1 litre thrash around 3 Sisters. There was a lot more of it, for a start. My 6^th ever corner was going to be a fast medium left directly into the 10ft wide paddock tunnel (or the ‘Exhaust Appreciation Tunnel’ as the sign on the entrance reads…). Not much room for error – I’m sure that the tyre barrier would absorb SOME of the impact, but the concrete wall behind would take a lot more. Best call that as a caution then.

At 6.30am on the Sunday of the rally, I learned the next lesson of co-driving: Bacon sandwiches taste a lot better when they’re cooked on the back of a stove in your service van.

Once straps and footrest were properly adjusted, intercom sorted, everything checked, we were off. There was no repeat of the engine trauma, and it looked like we were in for a fun day’s rallying.

Sat at the start, I thought I’d be much more nervous or apprehensive. Scared maybe. But I couldn’t wait to get stuck in – all I could think was ‘start the stopwatch, call the flat left, 200’. Starting lights on, revs up, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and….promptly forget to start the stopwatch.

We launched into the first complex, a series of gentle lefts around the car park perimeter, with decent gaps in between followed by a left turn – right turn taking across the main access road – and my first glimpse of spectators! – then into the sweeping downhill run, through a sharp gated left into the tunnel section – and this was fun. The back kicking slightly out, Mike deftly threaded the tunnel needle with his Ford Anglia thread.

There then followed some 90 left into 90 right fun, in a sea of cones that appeared as you rose from the tunnel into the paddock. A quick blast down a tight left turn with a generous steel Armco barrier on the outside, And then…

“I don’t f*%&ing believe this” came over the intercom and we pulled up, ironically, in the pit lane. Mike leapt out, threw the bonnet off and got stuck into the connectors that were causing the trouble the day before, as I sat like a lemon – worse, a lemon with no technical knowledge at all – in the co-driver’s seat. Had I remembered to start the stopwatch, I could have timed the exact amount of rallying I thought we were going to manage that day: about 1 minute and 20 seconds. Fun, but not really value for money.

After watching the several other crews I knew as they drove past (them with sympathy on their faces, me with jealousy on mine), Mike slammed the bonnet back down (having reconnected the rogue connector – which was no relation to our friends of the previous day)

Right – onward in anger with Mike profusely and unnecessarily apologising to me as I called the tight hairpin left we were immediately faced with. This opened onto a great 500m blast at full throttle down the pit lane, into a very fast left-right complex. Another open hairpin, and we were on the famous Rockingham banking, speeding the ‘wrong’ way around turn one, with a solid concrete wall inches to my left and the revs and speedo rising.

THIS I thought would be scary – that wall, the scale of the place, the speed coming off the banked turn into a chicane on the grandstand straight – but no. This was fun – I was set on my job, Mike was set on his – why worry about what the car’s doing, Mike’s clearly in full control of that, I just have to make sure he knows where to put it.

The rest of the stage ran smoothly and ended with a nasty, tight hairpin left, into an immediate 90 right through a gate, followed by a 90 right flying finish – I have a lot more respect for the marshals who stood there as they were faced with a sideways Anglia.

So, the first stage wasn’t as good as it could have been, what with having spent three minutes stopped on stage, But we were back in service – unlike a few other poor sods who had been unable to get through the first stage.

The second stage ran the same route – and as we negotiated the grandstand straight chicane I heard Mike’s growl of anger again, This time, the engine had decided to run on three cylinders – but we could still get around the stage in just over ten minutes (I had remembered the watch this time) which was better than a stage maximum, we thought.

Onto stage three, and the layout of the sea of cones had changed on the rise out of the tunnel – and this threw me completely. When I should have called to stay right, I was looking for a 90 right through a gate. My lack of confidence didn’t help Mike, who did the best he could to find some sort of right turn in the jigsaw of cones which he did, with an immediate 90 left and…..oh – was that the finish? We’d managed to miss out the entire stage and practically drive from the start control to the finish, cutting right across the split in the process. Ooops! Even worse, it meant we arrived back in service before our pasties were ready in our service van oven.

The third rule of co-driving: ‘It’s always the co-driver’s fault’

Then it all went right on Stage 4. Remembering to stay right where we failed before, everything clicked –we were flying. We made time up on and passed the two cars ahead of us, every call came out perfect, Mike was having a great time with the car, and when we crossed the finish in 9.33 we were very happy. That felt good – REALLY good.

Come stage five, and it was time to run the stages in reverse, and drain the cooked brakes from a brilliant run. I had a chat with Steve, our mechanic and Mike’s regular co-driver, about the stage, and pointed out one corner in particular: the exit from the tunnel rose uphill into the gated right with a nasty pile of rocks on the inside. I remember my words: “There’s practically nothing on the outside of that corner”. “There’s never nothing….” replied Steve.

After a long wait to get onto stage, we were losing the light, and things were starting to get dim. But we were on a flyer again, and it felt fantastic. We negotiated both splits and made the run down to the tunnel – this was much narrower this way round than before, and we had a hairy moment before slotting into the tube. Out of the tunnel, round the medium right and up through the gate, over 90 right, drifting out sideways and BANG – the nothing on the outside of the corner was in reality a kerb with an Armco barrier behind and a six foot drop into a ditch behind that. My head jerked left into the rollcage, then ricocheted the other way. (But I held onto my notes!). We bounced off the kerb, thankfully pointing the right way. Mike, to his eternal credit, kept his foot in. And kept it in as the left rear of the car dropped and an horrific grinding noise started. The cabin was lit with the trail of sparks coming from the back of the car, as the left rear wheel and half of the axle bounced off into the field to our left. And still Mike kept his foot in. “I think we’d better pull over” I said, as we both noticed a metallic ringing noise. Made by our brake disc, which had now overtaken us, and was rolling up the hill in front of us. As we pulled over, the disc rolled to a halt 100m ahead of us, and ended the rally having completed slightly more stage miles than the rest of the car, and 20 seconds short of the stage finish.

Having checked we were both OK, we hopped out and surveyed the damage – front left wheel bent in, with a shattered brake disc, left rear gone completely. “ARE YOU PHYSICALLY INJURED?” yelled the nearby marshal. “NO – HAVE YOU SEEN A WHEEL ANYWHERE?” we were obliged to reply. Then the next car through did exactly the same thing – and I hate to say that I was actually quite relieved by this…I wasn’t that bad if other experienced crews could do the same thing! All in all, the corner claimed five cars. Plus, once again, having made the places up, I had the pleasure of watching my friends sail past again.

So what was it? Mike modestly apologised for maybe being a bit keen through the corner, whereas I feel I could have emphasised the camber and the dampness on that part of the stage that we’d noticed earlier.

So there you go – the fourth rule of co-driving. There are good days, and there are bad days, but at the end of the day, it’s rallying, and rallying’s great.