At the end of 2008 Matt decided to do Rally First and asked me co-drive for him again, excellent. We would be using a VW Lupo, again prepared by John Goff and Rallyschool.co.uk. The car is virtually standard, having no diff or other tricks just a decent suspension and 105 BHP (standard!). The 1st time we got to use the car properly was the Wyedean Forest Rally, where it didn’t half snow in the week leading up to the rally.
The rally itself was really slippery. There were sections where we only just managed to get up hills or manage to get the car to stop for some tighter corners. Thankfully it only took Matt a few corners and 1 excursion to adapt his driving. We took it slow and steady, wanting to get some points on the board to start the season off. During the day we had 3 or 4 slight offs, which unfortunately all added together to loose us about 1minute, which is a lot in Rally First. We finished 8th RF1.4 and 114th O/A.
2 weeks after the Wyedean, we decided to do the North West stages, for 2 reasons: To get more seat time in the car on proper conditions and because its our local rally. And what a rally it is to call our local one. We started at about 7pm Friday night and did 2 stages both repeated. We finished Friday night at about 11pm and in 83rd O/A (after starting at 104).
We then re-started Saturday morning and went on a push to see how we could do. Despite being in a standard 1.4 we were setting some respectable times and manage to hold our own against the bigger cars. We had a clean run on Saturday, despite the stages being slippy (especially Lytham Hall!). We ended up 39th O/A and 4th in class.
After the NWS we had a month’s break, due to the RF championship not counting the Malcolm Wilson as a round. This meant that Somerset Stages was our next rally together. Meanwhile I had done the Roskirk Stages at 3 sisters with Matt Jones on his 1st rally. We managed to finish 6th F1000, which was good going for Matt.
On the Somerset, I and Matt Griffin decided we would try and get more points, but after the 1st two stages we were lying 4th in class (this includes catching the car that started in front of us). So we decided to carrying on pushing, unfortunately we picked up a puncture on stage 3 when we pulled the tyre off the front left wheel. We then had a spin on stage 4. We then got our heads down on the next 5 stages and with a lot of trying we managed to get 3rd in class. During this we set some top 3 times, which was great to say we had never driven the car on gravel! We may have got 2nd, but the last stage was cancelled due to a earlier car having a accident.
Our next rally was 3 weeks later. This was the Plains Rally, based around Welshpool, and included the infamous Timber Yard Stage as stages 1&9, and would prove decisive in our rally. We went into stage 1 trying hard, maybe too hard as we lost 9 seconds to our main rivals. This was the same story with stage 2, again another short stage. For stage 3 we reassessed and went in with a smoother style. Here we managed to make up some of the time we had lost and clawed our way back into the top 5 in class. After stage 5 we had managed to get within 7 seconds of 3rd. During the next 3 stages we traded time with Roy Gravestock, and went into the final stage 6 seconds ahead. Unfortunately we managed to pick up a puncture during the stage, which caused us to run wide on the last corner into a field. We lost 9 seconds on the stage, and thus ended up 3 seconds behind 3rd. But our 3rd in class and 61st O/A meant we moved into the top 3 in the championship.
1 comment:
Nice review of your year so far Joe, looking forward to seeing what the rest of the year brings. Best of luck man :)
And see you at the Woodpecker haha
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