Driver: Peter Boddy
Co-Driver: Eddie Beilby
Car No.164 Skoda Favorit Class N1 (Production cars up to 1300cc)
Day 2: Monday Stages 8-14
We restarted at around 7.30am and the three hour road section was interrupted only by a short service a few miles from SS8, the County Durham stage normally referred to as Hamsterley. This was a nice awakener after the boring road section. There were still quite a few spectators about and as we went through the famous, often televised, ford - we overtook car 157, the infamous LADS rally team of Danny Fois and Mike Wiseman in a Hendy Motorsport RS2000, much to the great delight of an arm waving, air punching spectating child and a much older policeman who should have known better and been paying more attention to his driving.
So we were pleased to see our own lads at Hexham where they did all the usual bits. We began to psyche ourselves up for the next stage, SS9 Pundershaw, the longest stage in the history of the entire universe.
Actually, that's a bit of a fib, but at 37 miles long, YES 37 MILES, it was definitely the longest one in the rally and some 11 miles longer than any we'd done before. So into Pundershaw and around halfway through the stage, we approached a hairpin left which I recognised as being rough from previous rallies. So after debating whether to back off a bit or not as this was only the RAC, the car bounced over to the inside of the road and dropped a left wheel into one of Kielders infamous ditches, halting us fairly and squarely in our tracks.Luckily, this was a well marshalled junction and with the selection of reverse and a quick shove we were back on our way again (Seen on the telly later - IJ).
Now around five miles from the end of the stage, although the idea wasn't to go too hard, I began to get committed to the excellent pace notes and after a very fast 2 mile section where every crest & bend was virtually flat out, Eddie called a left 3 which was a fairly slow bend. Now, to give him his due, Eddie called it, I heard it. And my brain chose to ignore it.
We emerge over a crest going around 30mph too fast, I see the road kinking left and envisage a space 100 yards straight on across open moorland where the car is going to end up if I don't do something about it. I yanked on the handbrake and we ended up sliding sideways down the road. If I could snap the car back for the bend we might get away with it & make the corner.
Unfortunately, both front wheels slid along one of Kielder's...........yes, Infamous ditches dragging the car to a halt 90 degrees across the road. We quickly realised that the guard or the bottom of the car was stuck on the edge of the road and with Eddie Valiantly pushing, we were still going nowhere. This really was one of those "might as well be on the moon" type of places with no marshalls or spectators for miles.
Eddie had set off running back up the stage in a vain attempt to get help. At this point, in desperation, I remembered a gentleman's agreement made between several Skoda crews (including ourselves) back in Chester, that being we would try and tow each other back onto the road if it could be done without losing too much time. I dived out of the car to get the towrope out of the boot, attached it to the rear towing eye and began waving it at every passing car.
After seeing a Suzuki and a Mini fly by; Car 166, crewed by Tim Green and Andy Turnbull, bless their little cotton socks, slid to a halt. I quickly clipped the rope the their towing eye, jumped back into my own car, got dragged out, unclipped the rope and thankfully banged on their tailgate, they were off, only losing 20 seconds or so.
The only problem was that our car was now facing the wrong way, back up the track, and no sign of the navigator. Jumping back into the Favorit again, I was about to reverse down the road when car 167 (a German Lada crew) came flying over the crest and just missed me. They seemed puzzled that I was facing the wrong way and also that the crew number seemed to have been reduced by half.
I then reversed down to a wider spot, turned the car round and began maniaically tooting the horn in an effort to get Eddie to return. After realising that this was not working, I jumped out of the car again and ran back up to the previous crest, where I could see him still at least 1/2 a mile away and signalled for him to come back. At this point, as he began running back, I noticed that as well as still wearing his helmet, he was still clutching his pace notes.
"Well" I thought, "He's probably running back through to check he got the call right !" By the time he returned, belted himself in and we set back on our way, he was having difficulty in breathing, let alone read pace notes. Bless him.
A couple of miles further on, the stage surface changed to thick black mud and this had caught several crews out with quite a few cars having gone off. There was another German crew, but this time in an Escort Cosworth, as the marshalls who were trying to bounce their car back onto the road were blocking the track, we had to come to a halt. At this point one of the Germans, almost in tears, begged us to help them.
So, as we'd had a superbly good turn done for us, I thought it only fair that we try and help someone else. The tow-rope was duly chucked out of the window to them and there was our little Skoda and half a dozen bodies trying to get the Cossie out. After 3 quick but unsuccessful attempts it was obvious to both Eddie and I that we would burn out our clutch before the car came out of the mud. The rope was returned & then we had to be pushed out of the mud as well.
You could say we were well glad to see the end of that stage. We met the boys at Kielder Reservoir service area and they put the car back into top form before we were dispatched into SS10, Broomilynn and SS11, Wauchope. Now I thought that Kielder was rough normally, but after the passage of 150 or so cars, tram lines had been dug into much of the stage mileage. Halfway through Broomilynn, the exhaust parted company leaving us sounding like a racing tractor.
Luckily, Wayne and Mark were nearby and as it was only the silencer separating from the system, our hearing was restored & peace returned for Wauchope.
The temporary exhaust repair lasted out most of the stage but was then repaired before the next stage, Kershope, where apart from being involved in a 3-4 car race with an Astra GTE, an Audi S2 and the German Lada, we didn't have too many problems in completing 22½ miles in the dark. Yes, we also saw the flash of car headlights from the Carlton marshals. Cheers Guys. It was nice to know you'd forgiven us for Clumber Park.
Prior to us, and about 30 other cars starting SS13, Grizedale West, a spectator had suffered a heart attack. Due to the ambulance having to be sent in, the decision had been taken to run us through non-competitively. As the stage was over 17 miles & due to the fact that on these long ones at full speed, we were struggling to stay free of road penalties thanks to schedule timing. We'd decided, along with several others, to put our helmets on anyway, drive on the notes, but not to "Death it."
Well, only a mile or so into this stage, the car cut out & refused to restart. After being aided by marshals, it appeared that the problem was electrical, and as no wire tugging seemed to solve it, I changed the distributor, which is a well known achilles heel, and the car restarted immediately. We drove the stage as quickly as possible, due to our fear of road timing penalties and also due to the fact that I had set the timing too retarded, therefore we were well down on power. When you've only got 75hp to start with this makes a big difference.
Unfortunately, the last stage of the day - Grizedale East ,was only a mile or so away. As it was only five miles long I decided to press on, do the stage and then have the timing readjusted due to the ever present road penalties.
Anyway, we were pleased to clear this last stage despite all the incurred penalties and lost time, and met up with Wayne and Mark at emergency service to sort the timing and fuel up. This was due to the fact that Brian, Don and Steve were waiting at pre Parc-ferme service in Chester, not wanting the van stuck in traffic.
3 hours later, after, probably the longest, most boring road section in the world we arrived at main service. At this point, the tiredness really started to catch up with me & it was obvious that everyone in the team were starting to feel the long hours and many miles.
As we had pressed on down to Chester to avoid any unexpected jams etc, it didn't help that we had to wait an hour before we could book into service.
One lighter moment at this point was when I was approached by a marshal who said in his best Brummie accent, "H 503 BNX, I've been waiting for you to come, this used to be my old road car." After expecting a service crew induced wind up, it turned out that the guy was genuine and really interested to hear of all his old cars exploits.
We eventually hit our beds in Chester at 1 or 2 am. We'd feel a lot more tired in 3 hours time when we'd have to get up and do it all again!