Despite running another old driveshaft, it failed to break this time so Daren was able to get on with the job in hand and keep the car travelling fast and (more or less) straight over the challenging stages of South Wales.
The “more or less” was necessary in this tale though, because on stage two coming into a downhill 90 left, a brief fumble with the gears meant the back came round too far and the nose ended up in the nearside ditch – stuck. Fortunately there were enough spectators on hand to push the car back onto the track and we were away again about 30 seconds down, with lots of tooting and waving our thanks.
Right, that’s got the embarrassing bit out of the way. The rest of the event was brilliant. Relishing the smoother, more flowing nature of some of the stages and benefiting from two new Dunlops on the front, Daren really started to get into making the car work like it should. With a much more realistic start number of 42 (from 82 on the Somerset stages), from the 167 starters, 30th overall on the 5.5 miles of Rhondda 1 was looking good.
Stage two, 7 miles of Tower 1, proved to be our troublesome stage with the half spin first time through. 42nd overall being the result of that and it was to cost us dear come the end. This stage also saw the first retirements of the event, with no less than 13 cars retiring here or shortly after.
Rheola 1 was stage three and a very serious 13 miler. But this had some very fast parts and yet again we found top revs in 6th gear over some of the switchback-like tracks. What didn’t help was that I had left it a bit too late to order 1:25000 maps of the stages, so was having to call the road from the 1:50000 maps provided. Hmmm, just like the road rally days and true to form there were quite a few not-as-map bends!! No problem to Daren though, 12th fastest of the 134 finishers here – excellent!
Management service was allowed after each stage and it was pleasing to report no real problems to Spiderman Dawson in the Range Rover barge. Just a quick check over, splash of fuel and away again. Mind you, Daren did complain of feeling a bit tired, having had to endure Mark’s snoring at the digs the night before!
Stage four was back to Tower 2, the scene of our trouble earlier. Needless to say more care was taken at that particular bend and a whopping 31 seconds faster was the result. Remember that number….. 13th fastest here and the entry was down to 125.
Stage five, Rheola 2, was a 7 mile shortened version of the earlier run through, but still contained Daren’s favourite bits. A further four cars dropped out here, but the Sunny was flying. An extremely satisfying =4th fastest overall, just 8 seconds slower than the stage winner really put the icing on the cake.
And so to the last stage, which should have been the reverse direction of the first. Looking forward to that, but when we arrived at the start we were told that the stage had been cancelled due to excessive holes from the first run through. We drove through slowly and yes, there were some nasty bits, but nothing we hadn’t suffered on previous events. The one good thing was that it meant that the fuel situation that was worrying us a bit didn’t materialise. It also meant that we had made it in one piece, wahayyyy!
Back to HQ for the finishing ramp and a quick chat to Hannah Curry of Motorsport News, who went a bit quiet when we asked her about the dreaded Sam Collins!
The results started to come in. Up ‘til then we had no idea of the times noted above, or our position in class. Our main class rival, Will Onions in an ex-works fwd Escort RS2000, had whopped us in Somerset, and we didn’t really expect much different here because of the spin. But of course in rallying you don’t always know how the others get on, only by passing wrecked or broken cars in a stage!
This time it was close. Very close! Stage 1 – we were 2 seconds ahead. Stage 2, 24 seconds slower – you know why. Stage 3, a further 2 seconds slower. Stage 4 and we got those 2 seconds back. Stage 5 – 9 seconds to the good.
That gave Will the BTRDA class win by just 13 seconds and he finished 13th overall from his 27th start number. Daren took the class second and 14th overall, but if only we hadn’t dropped that 30 odd seconds on stage two……if only, if only!
A most satisfying event all round. Enthusiastic but well-behaved spectators, good event paperwork and organisation, nice stages and weather on the whole. However it was slightly spoiled by a results protest that delayed the awards. By 9 o’clock we decided that we had to get moving so gave our apologies and began the long haul home.
Also very pleased to see fellow 7Oaks crew Mark Best / Roy Rayner make it to the end in their Peugeot 106. Starting at number 72, their stage overalls were 145th, 102nd, 86th, 81st and 88th.
7th in class and 81st overall was their result. Unfortunately we didn’t seem to come across them all day to say hello to, but we hope they had a good event. What about it chaps? A few words to tell how your year is going?
Next event the Sutton Auto Factors Dukeries Rally based in Mansfield on 21st June.
Wish us luck!