Adrian Barker Memorial stages Binbrook
12th August 2001
A van, we had a van. So it was loaded with everything I could think we may need. Including tools, fluids, wheels and tyres, sundries and the kitchen sink. So why when I looked at my spare front subframe with rack, bottom arms and drop links and loads of space left on the van didn't I pack them? I don't know. Maybe we weren't meant to continue on this one?
After a night sleeping in the van and enduring a very windy and wet one we woke to find a wet and showery day. The ground was wet but no standing water and dirty with red mud on it. I decided to swap from moulded slicks to intermediates and head out on the first stage.
With a 50 car entry we were determined to finish well here again and no quarter was given in the driving technique. The stage was very slippy but I was now getting to grips with the way the Pug slides into corners (sometimes rear first) and although I fiddled with the front to rear brake bias I could not tune it out on braking. Its something I'm going to have to look at seriously as with the valve almost shut I still get rear wheel lock up on severe braking. After 2 laps we came out confident that we would have a good finish here.
At the last minute I decided to use knobblies but had run out of time thinking that I would change for stage 3 we went out on Stage 2 which was a repeat of the first and on the second lap heading into a very nice 90 right for the 4th time I thought I had it summed up. Sideways through it on the brakes and power on through the very slick dirty apex on opposite lock to correct when disaster struck. It gripped! Straight on to the right and I saw a 400mm kerb coming towards me. "I don't want to hit that at this speed" I thought. Too late, even with my superheroe lightening fast reflexes, the car wouldn't respond as fast as I could. We bounced off into the left hand side of the track with no drive. The impact had knocked it out of gear. Having realised this I selected first and to my surprise it drove off albeit with the steering wheel at a funny angle. Second was taken and I became aware that it wasn't exactly going in a straight line and pulling to the right. I thought I had a flat when smoke began passing my side window. I wasn't about to stop having 3/4 of a lap to the finish and carried on at a slower pace. we made it to service only dropping 1 1/2 minutes to our first stage time and when I got out the wheel had about 4 degrees positive camber and was touching the rear of the front arch! Bugger. The bottom arm was shaped like a banana and the anti roll bar drop link was pulled from the socket. Malcolm tried to remove the lower arm as I rushed round service asking all the Pug drivers if they could donate a spare O/S lower arm. Nobody had one and if they did they were group A ones that wouldn't fit. In desperation I began asking people who had just rolled or retired and even asked one mechanic who was servicing for a 6R4!! Chris Leeming offered me his vice, big hammer and service crew who all had that evil glint in their eyes when they thought they had a chance of hitting sumat with a hammer! But as its cast I gave up on that one because it would only have fatigued it. I eventually got back to find Malcolm had only just got the arm off as it was bent so bad that the bolts wouldn't come out and it was trapped on the rubber bushes. I told him I couldn't get a spare and we had to put it back to get it on the trailer!? Well it went back but with only the front bolt in and the rear one flaping about an inch and a half upwards in the air. It was enough to get it on the trailer though.
We watched the rest of the rally and eventually the lure of the pub got too much so we went during the last stage with about 20 left in the rally to go home with our first DNF retirement. Next event in a week at Leconfield again.