Kitty Litter
Once again I have been exploring our glorious rail network and as always it managed to supply me with fodder for LFGT! My work often takes me around the middle bit of England and I have to visit those places that you’ve heard of but are not sure exactly where they are. Places like Kettering, Nuneaton and Quinton. These are places that are similar to the Vauxhall Vectra in the sense that there’s nothing wrong with them except that they are totally forgettable. This time I was off to Leicester, I think for the first time but with a place like that you would never know.
As usual I was travelling from Beckenham but a guy I work with was travelling from Oxford. He was to have all the fun and games this time. He ordered a taxi to pick him up from his house just outside Oxford, the taxi went to pick him up from a road with the same name in Didcot. At the same time I was arriving at a chilly St. Pancras station to see a sight that dismayed me. A large group of cold and dismayed looking commuters clutched their cardboard cups of coffee and waited for news. There was only one train in the station and no sign of any others. I looked up at the plasma screen displays and all but one service had been either delayed or cancelled. Luckily the one unaffected service was one that stopped at Leicester. I bought the required cup of coffee and boarded that one lonely train. And awaited the departure, the driver explained that due to an unknown failure somewhere up north that the train had none of its usual staff as they were missing along with all the other trains.
A little after the train pulled out of the station the driver revealed that he didn’t know the final destination of the service and was waiting for confirmation. Hmmm. He then went on to tell us that there had been a signalling failure somewhere north of Leicester at a place called Syston. I could have sworn that Syston was some sort of ailment. Imagine in the doctor’s surgery “I’m sorry sir, I’m afraid it’s Syston”. Of course there was a failure it was at Syston – the one place in England that has the name of an ailment, Well that and Pratts Bottom.
The fiasco that is today’s railway system got me thinking. What would the combined scrap and land value be if the entire network was sold off to developers? Significant I think. The whole railway network is publicly owned and if sold off I think it would divvy up nicely between the British population. Sell the whole lot off, buy a moped with the proceeds and instantly solve the traffic problem. The London Underground? The mother of all indoor Kart tracks!
Suffice to say I arrived at Leicester wondering what the lap time would be on the Circle line.

Greeting the Armco
My first season of rallying is over and I thought I’d tell the tale. Around this time last year I got chatting to one of my friends from university in the pub about rallying. Oli North and I decided it would be a nice little challenge to try and finish the forthcoming Kent rally.
At the time my aged 16 year old Volkswagen was running terribly, handling badly, not very fast and had recently struggled to reach the local Kart track. Our mates didn’t think we had a chance of finishing let alone finishing anywhere but last. I thought they could well be right.

Kent Rally
I knew that getting a good nights kip the night before the event was a good idea so on Friday night I headed off home when the pub closed. I was just drifting off at around what must have been 1am when I was awoken suddenly by my housemate Zoë returning home from clubbing. She had brought a ‘friend’ back with her. Her room was next door to mine and they had originally been one room. A thin partition wall been installed to split them into two small bedrooms. So thin was this wall that it was possible to hold a conversation in normal voices between the two rooms through said wall. Suffice to say I was kept awake for the next six hours by some (how can I phrase this in a family magazine) er… noises.
I drove to Beckenham the next day having had barely three hours sleep and marked the maps. Oli made his way to my house and we set off for Westerham.
Signing on and scrutineering went without a hiccup and we were ready for the off. The off however was two and a half hours later. We waited. During the final half hour we got the sounds going and waited for our minute to leave. The Elcombs waved us out and off we shot towards the Downs and instantly missed the first slot right. Oh well. The rally was taxing and ran its way down to the coast and the petrol halt. At which point I was about ready to give up and go to bed, the tiredness had caught up with me and for many sections I was unable to drive properly or quickly. I was a zombie and I was cursing Zoë for her antics the previous night.
A slipping clutch was making matters worse but I managed more through luck than judgement to cool it down without losing too much time.
Oli was getting the hang of Chin’s devious nav and we headed onto Pevensey levels, now this place scared me, black ice and just plain ice covered a sinuous strip of asphalt that was bordered by huge water filled ditches either side. There was no margin for error. I will blame my first few strands of grey hair on that place when I get them. The rally wound its way back to Shipbourne where I fell asleep on a sofa in The Chaser.
 We had finished, and not last either. Although we only managed to beat the last place crew through our luck and their misfortune as we were still finding our feet. We’ll do better next time, we said and then realised this one off was to turn into an addiction.
Swan Rally
This time no Zoë antics but on the Friday night we went for a run in the country with a local friend and his Escort around Oxfordshire. The car was handling far better, the new clutch was spot on, I had fiddled with the engine adjusting anything that I could to the factory spec and given the 1595cc a bit of a service. We had stepped up to the novice class. The novices were to get half the rally on marked maps and the other half was in a tulip road book. We only picked up one fail and it was perhaps one that will annoy me for a long time (and Oli too) on the marked maps the route was marked using black lines either side of the road. On one section however the lines made it impossible to see a little yellow where the route doubled back on its self. Oli called 90 right and I took it, and saw a control 90 left and got a wrong approach. That one fail cost us second place in the novice class. I still have the marked map and its hard to see that little road in the light of day. Being a summer event the last hour or so was in full daylight which was big balls stuff. On one section my car was not far off its top lick on a single track country lane. Fast – very, dangerous – perhaps, fun – massive. We came home 4th Novice which we thought was a good result until we realised that that fail had cost us very heavily. A good event. Although at one point we were sitting at a white crossroads wondering if we were in the right place when the class leading Citroen Visa GTi nearly t-boned us and then set off at a rate of knots into the distance. Scary moment as neither crew had expected another to be in the position they were
Wessex Rally
There were no paper regs sent out so it was only those with internet access taking part which totalled less than 20 competing cars. The route was only 90 odd miles and this event was the closest I have ever come to competing on a 12-car. There was a great white at one point where I saw an exclamation mark and a sign saying keep left I thought “what’s an exclamation mark mean then” as the car being on the right took off landing in a large muddy pool. Great fun, as I like getting muddy. We managed to repeat our 4th novice finish again although with the car running low on fuel, and the nav foxing Oli, I was getting wound up and we were struggling. Seems as though everyone else was too though.
After the Wessex we missed a few events due to holidays etc.
Media Control Powerush Rally
The return to Kent and I had some new trick bits for the Golf that I fancied trying out. I bolted a pair of ex-Colin Billings Colway intermediates to the front of the car as an experiment. They were mega offering huge grip. Oli was deadly in the nav and I was loving the extra grip offered by these tarmac spec tyres, although the occasional gravel induced moment was had. The real fun started when the route reached Romney Marsh you see I was bursting for a wee and the only way Oli was going to let me go was if I managed to get to a control with a minute to wait. I was pushing right to the limit and it showed as we caught and passed a number of Semi experts who must of been struggling with the nav more than Oli was.
We reached the finish knowing that we had done well and could be in the top two novices. Although it wasn’t until Mick Rose pointed it out to us us that we realised we had come in first novice. This was the first time Oli had won any sort of motorsport pot, and I was chuffed to add another to the few that I have picked up. A fantastic event with perhaps the best finish venue for any Rally 2002 event – the Ashford International Hotel.
Pheasant Plucker Rally
There was only one other car in the Novice class on this event and it was the time for the third member of our team to prove itself. The Novice class was to be the Wolfsburg duel as two of Germany’s finest went head to head. My 1595cc GL job was up against a clean 16v GTi. However mine had been having major problems and was not running well and due to a carb problem idling at 2000 rpm. The Colways were out of the question as the weather was filthy. An electrical gremlin had got into the lighting and the new spotlights were not working properly.
We set off and for the first half of the event the water wreaked havoc with the car dropping us to three cylinders and the alternator started making a horrible din. We were struggling and Oli was not a happy bunny. However we managed to limp home as first novice and win the duel but we were beaten by a clubman crew. It was clear the car needed an overhaul but I hadn’t the time to do it before the last event of the year.
Nightwatchman Rally
A quick patch up job was all we had time for the car was at its most recalcitrant and to make matters worse we had moved up to semi-expert. The nav was super tough and we struggled our way home.
In all it was a great learning year for us and we are going to do a fuller season next year, hopefully taking on the Welsh at some point. I would like to thank all those who helped us along the way, and most of all I want to thank Oli North for being brave (or foolish) enough to sit next to me all that way!
 
Volkswagen have sent me a really long pencil, it’s much longer then the one Citroen sent me.

Sam Collins