Sea King Stages, Leconfield. 19th August
Car 47 G.Steggles/E.Bain
4.30 am? It's a nightmare. Scrutineering and drivers meeting dispatched with and out for a wet stage 1. I now understand how other competitors feel when they have tyre choices as the day went from wet to damp to dry to damp to soaking wet. Stage 1 and 2 were taken on road tyres as wet weather material. The organisers had made the hill jump the other direction to the last time we were there which meant we had a lot of air time as we went over it. The only problem being a hairpin left just after we landed.
There were stories of competitors shoving their sumpguards through the sump and damaging mountings when landing from this. The more we did it the longer we got in the air until Emma sensibly started slowing me for it.
After stage 4 we decided that it was dry enough for slicks and started to grip at last with the front end now biting and pulling us round bends.
We started =39th after stage1 and were now progressing up through the field.
After 3 we were still in the 30's which worried me a bit but we carried on.
After stage 5 we looked at the results and found to have picked up a 1 minute
penalty. We enquired about this and the organisers informed us that we had checked
out of a finish control 1 minute early! We knew we hadn't as we were following
the car in front and had no way of checking the finish time cos the marshals
were writing in the time and sending us out. When they checked it was found
that they had written in the wrong time. After this was rectified we were 23rd
and 11th in class after stage 6.
The last 2 stages were 3 milers and we had 13 seconds to make to get 22nd and
10th. A little ambitious so we went steady to try to minimise mistakes and hoped
everyone in front would make them. To make matters worse it rained heavily for
the last stages so I chose inters at the last moment with the top runners on
wets. My theory that they would shift enough standing water by the time we went
through to warrant our selection. We managed to take back 10 seconds over the
last 2 stages and 6 miles leaving a 2 second deficit. So the final result was
23rd and 11th in class. Next one at Melbourne for the Lookout on the9th September!