Armstrong Stages
Car 28 G.Steggles/E.Bain 7/7/02

Ever been in the situation where a previous car has moved certain cones and the route on a single venue has become unclear? The answer is of course you have but it's the first for us in actually redirecting us across the merge from the start of stage 1! We had a feeling we were wrong until we saw an un-bagged merge board supposedly confirming we were on the correct route. We were woken suddenly when a car turned 90 left towards us from the opposite direction as we were flat in 4th! Scary. This was a little disconcerting to say the least but I soon settled as we merged to the real route. We were on new moulded slicks and by the end of the first loop they were gripping well. By the end of the second loop they had gone off! This was to be a problem all day for quite a lot of crews as the temperature at Leconfield was high. Also on the first stage we developed a misfire over 3500 rev/min which turned out to be water in the plug holes. I knew we shouldn't have cleaned it! In service it just took a roll of paper cloth to remove the water and all was well again.

By lunch time I was unsure whether the tyres would last the event! 30 miles, 4 stages and they were shagged! What we needed was a new set every stage, but at £450 a set this meant that in eight stages I could have spent just short of £3600!!! A lot of tyre and wheel swapping was done to try and conserve them and we did manage to finish with some rubber left on them for the last stage.

With 3 stages to go I used the handbrake a little to negotiate a hairpin left (really 2 90's) and felt the lever come up a little more than usual together with a thump from the rear. At service I found the rear disc had snapped and luckily some one who was out had a spare! This fitted we were out on the next stage again.
The weather was brilliant and the rally ran well with no delays. Turning up on our minute meant we could drive straight to the start with only a couple of minutes before the off. I can only congratulate the organisation on this event for not having the usual holding delays of 20-30 minutes before stage start like other events. The use of electronic timing lights meant that people who usually jump start were penalised immediately and the more common policy of trying to grab a yard or so on the line was abolished.
So, at the end of the day we finished 18th O/A and 7th in class. Again. I need more speed. And more tyres!

G.Steggles/E.Bain