Extracts from Trackrod Motor Club's Magazine.
Lookoooouuuutttt!!!!!! Rally Melbourne Airfield (near York)
Car 81 Graham Steggles/Emma Bain.
Well. What can be said about this? Having finished the pug 205 for the rally Emma and I set off for scrutineering and noise check on the Saturday with Darren from Pro-Ral, his pug 205 and his Wife Ann who was to drive. We both got through with no problems apart from Barry Dove winding me up saying it was 104 Db when in fact it was 97.5 Db. I do like these club rallies, it’s a right laugh. With the cars parked in service it was off to the Hotel in Elvington for Saturday night. ( we couldn’t get in the Yorkway.) Well, it was alright, but for a private party going on till 2.00am and dropping off to “riding along in my automobile. Da da dada da” etc. and not being able to find a service station that sold super unleaded. (whats up with these places?) we eventually sat down to eat at 10pm. Oh well we awoke at 5.00am singing “riding along in my automobile. Da da dada da” etc. picked up our freshly made cold crispy bacon and mushroom butties and headed for the venue.
Having arrived at our spot we started our cars to get the barge in place but Darrens refused to go! Realising it was electrical we changed fuel pump relays, checked the coil, ignition management and at last with the help of Jim Plevey replaced the fuel management. Success we were both in the rally again. I pumped my front tyres up and paced up and down for a while. I haven’t done a rally for 17 years and Emma hasn’t done 1 at all so excitement ruled until we lined up. I have to say I can’t remember feeling sick from anticipation for a while let alone gipping twice. (or is that fear?) (And the only thing to Fear is Fear itself!!)
First stage was diabolical, rain had the surface extremely slippy and muddy and it was very rough. I slid to a stop three times on the stage having to use reverse each time from absolutely no front end grip. (well standard road tyres weren’t going to be exactly good were they?) When I returned I noticed steam from the bonnet and although it was only a little shunt into that oil drum it had pushed the radiator out of its bottom mount and into the inlet manifold. Bugger! Luckily it had crimped the gills and only allowed a little leak from it. Russel kindly lent me a tube of rad weld and the leak stopped. I repaid later when his exhaust dropped from the manifold and he lost his exhaust springs. Luckily I had brought some spare springs and gave them to him. It was lucky because that was the entire spares package I had apart from 1 wheel and tyre and 2 drive shafts (which go back on Tuesday!). Ann and Darren went out on the first stage due to a Group A drive shaft pulling out. Jim was there with his red cape and external underwear in a flash flying under the car and ripping out the offending item. My shafts wouldn’t fit and he couldn’t get any, which is very unlucky as Ann was doing well for a first drive ever.
Talking with Emma we decided to take it easier on the second stage and took about 30 seconds out of our first time but still it was very slippy indeed. As the day went on it started drying out and the sun came out but still no grip. The car has standard road tyres, standard suspension lowered 1” and standard brakes, not even rear discs! This made it very unpredictable were the front would wash out or the rear would break away or both or not as the case may have been. Hand braking would cause the rear to come round sometimes or just to stop the car in a straight line. Very disconcerting. After the flying finish the car had reached about 125mph and after braking there was a lot of smoke and a fishy smell from the front brakes.
After lunch the course reversed direction and one very rough left hand 90 was taken out, it was drier and I began to settle down but still had butterflies at the start of the stages. At least I had stopped hitting things. We were storming down the straights now but this started to highlight the crap suspension as hitting the bumps must have had the rear three feet in the air but I just kept my toe in hoping it would land straight. After lunch I just had a permanent smile on my face and in car on the stages Emma and I were both enjoying it. Before the last stage Jim came over smiling but wouldn’t let on why, I was a bit worried now but carried on having said that if we made the last stage I would just get round to the finish and off we went. Well I lied, I went for it and it felt good. If we had only not come to a stop and had to use reverse again at a hairpin right before the merge our time would have been better. We arrived in the time control and there was Jim with a couple of cold tinnies and the news that it looked as if we had best Trackrod crew. 32nd O/A and 9th in class. Ace.
I know its easy to say “what a great day” when you’ve won something but really it was a great day and thank you to everyone who organised, helped, turned up and especially to my navigator Emma Bain, Darren and Ann Lawson, Jim Plevey who was a star and seemed to be in all the right places in all the right times for all the people he helped and all the other competitors who offered advice and helped me back into a sport that I will always love even if I don’t get another opportunity to compete again. Having washed the car off it seems that it faired better than expected with hardly any damage and everything works! It just goes to show what can be had on a very tight budget and was worth every penny. But at least we got out there and had a go eh? Now, what’s coming up next? Oh, and how am I going to afford it? Well that ones easy, beans on toast again.
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