The Full Story Of LeJog 1999
Having first competed on Carlton & District's Lincolnshire Huntsman in 1974 made this my Silver Jubilee year in motorsport. What better way to round off the year than by having my first shot at completing LeJog. Organised by the Historic Endurance Rallying Organisation (brainchild of John Brown, the inventor of Targa timing) this runs a 1600 mile route from Land's End to John O'Groats, taking 3 days to complete yet giving crews only one night in bed! To add to the challenge I did the event with Len Smith from Todmorden in his 1966 Morris Cooper S, a nicely sorted car with proper safety and navigation equipment and finished in the traditional red with white roof. I had already done a number of road rallies with Len and we were starting to get it together as a team.
LeJog started with 108 competitors and a further 19 crews on the touring trial, the daunting event beginning with a timed trial around the windswept headland of Land's End. At the front of the field were vintage cars, a 1925 Vauxhall Wensum leading away a Bentley, an Alvis, a Frazer Nash and a Lea Francis. The Alvis owner blew the head gasket on the Friday so they spent six hours in scrutineering to fashion a new gasket from a fresh sheet of copper. Generally, the entry list was very impressive and spectators were treated to a wide variety of cars. How far would they all get? Just a word about the different motoring disciplines that make LeJog so unique. The length of the country was peppered with autotest sites, many on army land, where tests were run against the clock. All included some reversing but many were more akin to special stages. 'Novelty' items included 4 laps of Knockhill race circuit (for consistency of lap times) and an observed river crossing at Stanhope ford. The lanes around Clocaenog and Dalkeith provided the venues for a couple of frantic road rally sessions (pre-plot) and then, of course, were the Jogularity sections. Jogularity sections are run as regularities with a maximum of 30 mph though, as you can imagine, the terrain can get a bit tricky. You don't know when controls are likely to appear and the section requires total concentration all the way through. The Jogularities included 40 miles on Epynt and a 61 miler at Loch Ness, but the Devil's Staircase section around Abergesyn had to be cancelled due to snow and ice. Finally, of course, there was the sheer mileage to travel the length of the country on quite tightly timed road sections.
Now for the confusing bit. There is no overall winner of LeJog and all those who arrive at John O'Groats will be classified as finishers. Additionally, they may win a gold, silver or bronze medal. On each test or competitive section the fastest or most consistent crew is rebased with nil penalties, thus setting the gold standard. Crews are marked according to their performance relative to their class leader and a gold medal winner has to
Lesser performances may still attract silver or bronze. Len and myself started with the goal of getting up to the top of the country, though in reality I wanted to top off my rallying year with a medal and a good result in our class. We had a storming first day with some good test performances and some spot-on regularities. I didn't enjoy the 'Beast of Bodmin' Jogularity but our relative performance was good enough for gold, and we were comfortably on our scheduled time. The Mini ran superbly and was a delight to drive. We had new intermediate tyres for the rally and a taller diff at the last rebuild to give it a better cruising capability. It is tight for space but still much better than a sports car such as a TR4, and the door bins are ideal for a navigator to use. Due to the 200 mile limit I had to drive on a few sections and it was with some reluctance that I handed the controls back to Len.
Our most dramatic moment came in Wales when we were on the road rally sections. This is the area where I excel and gave us an opportunity to steal a march on the opposition under cover of darkness..... Unfortunately we came to grief on an icy downhill approach to a 90 right - this turned out to be a 45 right into a hedge leaving us suspended in mid-air. After ten or fifteen minutes three crews had attempted to tow us off. The third one succeeded and we continued with a serious time deficit that blew our chances of a gold. A rough gravel section on Epynt had started a crack developing in the exhaust manifold. The RAC mechanics who shadowed the event (a superb bunch of lads) could not effect a repair so we had to contend with a worsening noise problem as we headed north. Our performances around the Lake District and the Border Regions were very good and fatigue was not such a major problem. Had we not found a couple of long Welsh sections cancelled matters might have been completely different. For me the highlight of the rally was the night navigation section south of Edinburgh. This was pre-plot and turned out to be a complete 'balls-out' thrash. But although it seemed to have been dark for ages we finished those sections around seven o'clock in the evening!
After an excellent night at the Swallow Hotel in Edinburgh we had a good breakfast and set off for more tests and regularities. After a morning of mixed motorsport we then covered a lot of the distance up to the north. Our route took us over Devil's Elbow, the highest road in the UK which runs past the ski resorts and the royal estate of Balmoral. Little surprise that Prince Charles paints watercolours and writes about the old man of Lochnagar - there is sod all else to do in such a bleak part of the country! Close to Inverness we started on the lengthy Jogularity round Loch Ness unaware that the car might let us down. After three controls on this part we had to negotiate a series of uphill hairpin bends as quickly as we could in order to stay on time. As we came out of the last of these corners we had no drive and immediately suspected clutch failure. As it turned out we had broken a driveshaft and were out of the event without a spare. The next twelve hours were spent on the end of a rope and on a recovery vehicle as we worked our long way back to Todmorden. We had saved a day's holiday and a big petrol bill but would far rather have been there at J O'G for the celebrations. I hope we will have another go next year and bring our experience to bear, maybe after a successful season in the East Midlands. I would recommend the event to others as a Christmas warmer. It has a good atmosphere and provides a huge challenge to both crew members.
I can easily understand how people get hooked on an event like this and I for one hope to be there again.
Richard Lumb