When I first took an active interest in motorsport, it was the reports for the "Motoring News" road rallies that caught my eye back in 1986. Here it seemed , was a motorsport discipline that could be done in my own road car, with only a few go faster bits required. The Mini that was my transport at the time (1300cc and drum brakes!) was half heartedly prepared with a sumpguard that gave all of 2" of ground clearance and some M20 Brake linings in the front drums.
Fortunately, the Mini failed it's MOT in spectacular fashion before it could be used in combat, and any road rallying urges were satisfied by going spectating in 1986/87. Then the RACMSA changed the rules governing Road Rallying so it became much more navigation orientated. I lost interest in competing on them almost immediately.
Ten years on - despite working on Richard Lumb's Estelle all this time, I still hadn't bothered. That is until Richard offered me the chance to navigate on an event. His regular navigator, John Pickavance, would be spectating on the Tour of Mull at the same time as the 061 Road Rally. I agreed, advising him that he shouldn't expect a brilliant performance first time out. Practice on Harry and Steve's 12 car proved better than expected. We won and the only concern that I had at this point was whether I would be able to keep my tea down for 150 miles.
The start was in Buxton and Richard would pick me up on the Saturday night at 7.30pm. He duly arrived and commented that the car had started misfiring. Ten minutes later, we were parked in a lay-by on the A52 investigating the problem further. This indicated that there might be a possible problem with the distributor (A noted Skoda weak spot.) We didn't have a spare, (we had everything else though) so we carried on, the engine would run flat until it reached 3000rpm and then would behave reasonably, then misfire on the overrun.We reached Ashbourne and then the fog rolled in. We had to slow to a crawl and were starting to worry if we'd even make Buxton in time.
Eventually, we found the noise test -after I'd missed a junction. This would set the tone for the evening. We passed noise, the car narrowly avoiding being flattened by some prat in an artic who decided that he wanted to turn his lorry at the same point. Scrutineering passed without incident. I have always held a rather romantic view of road rallying, you know - man and machine against the elements and all that stuff. It was now drizzling on Buxton, which quickly bought me to my senses. This start venue was a pimple on the bum of nature.
The event counted towards the EMAMC championship, whose rules stipulate that the navigator should not have to possess the mental abilities of Albert Einstein to plot the route. This meant a diet of Tulip diagrams and Grid references. Good. We left the start and headed to the Goyt Valley, just on the north east corner of map 118. This first road section had 45 minutes allocated, which gave us time to plot all the non- competitives, and rejoin points for the first half.
The heavens opened again, and I for once was glad to be sat in a nice warm car instead of marshalling. We started the first competitive section and cleaned it. On the transport section, Richard says "How does it feel to be leading a road rally?" I guess we were sharing the lead with half the field at that point.
The rest of the event didn't go nearly as well, trying to keep track of the clipboards and pencils seemed to be a full time occupation, let alone having to plot as well. As a result, I kept missing junctions. Everytime you wrongslot, you can say goodbye to cleaning that section. Up to this point, we hadn't actually missed a code board or control.
My most embarrassing moment of poor navigation was when I lost track of where we were on the map around Hartington. Embarrassing because the Jones family used to spend most summer weekends camping near Hartington, It was the last place I'd have expected to get lost!
The weather started to clear and driving conditions were much improved. And towards the end of the first half, we came across the first white (Unmade road) of the event.
A white, a real Derbyshire white, the stuff of legends and the cause of so much repair work for me over the years. It has taken me some time to actually come up with words to describe how rough it was, and the only two that spring to mind are "Badger's" and "Arse"
"Iiiiiiiiitttttttttttt'sssss verrrrrrryyy bummmppyyyy, iissssnnnn'ttttt iiiiitt," said I.
"Thisss iiiisss one ooofff tthhhe ssmmooootherr onesssss" replied Richard.
So there we were, with the front of the car grounding out on the track and me wondering what kind of damage it was inflicting underneath. We got to the end of that section and then passed through the village of Ilam en-route for the next competitive. At this point we were probably 26 minutes into our 30 maximum permitted lateness so we elected to miss a code board and a control and cut to petrol, rejoining the event a bit further up the road. We arrived at TTC20 only 15 minutes down now and eventually made the halfway (A car park at Carsington water) where the lateness allowed would be back to a full 30 minutes.
I even wrongslotted in the car park!
As I plotted the non-comp sections, Richard set about giving the car the once over. He had learnt to live with the misfire and I was hoping that I could give better directions in the second half.
Off we go, the first two code boards were somewhere down the road, so it was a case of in and out of concealed lay-bys to find them. The first was found relatively easily but then as Richard was doing a 3 point turn in someones drive, a mile after the halfway halt, a scraping noise appeared under the car. Richard got out to look and found that the NSF lower wishbone had sheared: A legacy of the battering it received on that white.
That was it, we were out. The gods smiled on us in one sense as there was a payphone nearby. Richard called the RAC (As an associated club member, he was able to get his car recovered on events at that time) This was at 4.15am.
At 5.00am, a LWB Transit fitted with a spectacle lift arrived from Matlock. At 5.02am, we were off. At 5.30am, they dropped me off at Gregory's rose gardens on the A52. Look at the map sometime and work out the average speed for us. Carsington Water is halfway between Matlock and Ashbourne.
Anyway, my thanks to Richard for even entertaining the thought
that I might be able to cope with the navigation on such an
event, and proving to have just enough patience to last. Our
thanks go to Andrew Lumb for fitting the brake pads and generally
assisting with preparation
Ian Jones