Back to 4WD...

After the the disappointment, I turned my attentions to the Pendragon Stages. I was doing the Pendragon stages, based at Penrith Truckstop, with Paul Miller in his newly built Escort Cosworth.

The event featured stages at the tough Warcop Army Ranges, Lowther Wildlife Park, and Lowther estate. We started off well, having 2 clean runs through the 1st 6 stages. It was then off to service, with only 10 minutes left, we relaised a shaft was damaged and had to use 5 minutes of out lateness to fix it. With the shaft sorted we set off to the next 6 stages. We had two more clean runs through warcop. But things started to go wrong on our 2nd run through Lowther wildlife Park, about a quarter of the way into the stage, the front left lower arm came apart meaning that the front left wheel was just hanging freely, and was getting caught in the wheel arch. We managed to make it out of the stage, but had to use five more minutes of our lateness to fix it and get it to the next stage. But unfortunately the propshaft snapped on the start line of the stage. And that was us out.

Coracle and Lion Stages

My next event after the Quinton Rally, was the Coracle Stages at The Sweet Lamb complex. For this event I was to be co-driving for Keith Parry in a Subaru Impreza. For the event we were to seeded car 4.

We got off to a good start to stage one, but about three quarters of the way through we cut a corner too much, this then through into a large ditch on the outside. After a couple of hard hits and heavy landings we bounced back onto the stage, luckily with a minor amount of cosmetic damage. This annoyed Keith meaning that into the next corner he was trying to hard and we ran wide loosing another few seconds. After a few words from both himself and me, he calmed down, and we ad a clean run to the end of the stage. Due to the time we lost with our excursion we were lying 6th o/a. We tried hard in the next 3 stages to make up the time we had lost. On stage 4 we were having a very good run, having passed a stopped car, we knew we had jumped up to 5th, but then as we rounded the last corner we saw the car that had started in front of us lying on its roof in the middle of the stage. Both the crew were ok, but unfortunately the stage was blocked meaning we had to stop. Funnily the car that rolled still got a time as they apparently rolled over the Flying finish.

Now in 4th, we carried on pushing, and going into the last stage we were 1 second behind 3rd o/a. But unfortunately lost 2 seconds to the car in 3rd after a slight overshoot and thus finished 4th o/a and 2nd in class.

My next event was the Lion Stages with Stuart Grainger again, the event was fr under 1400cc cars only, so should of made for a good close battle. Unfortunately we only get to see 1.5 miles of the battle, as we rolled on a medium left hander when the car snapped to the inside of the corner and dug into the rocks and rolled. After a helping hand from some spectators, we got the car back on the road again, and we finished the stage, although slowly as we had no windscreen and due to poor weather we couldn't see very well. We were prepared to carry on, but due to a bent rollcage we were not allowed.

Dukeries and Quinton Rally

So much for updating this thing with the Dukeries and Quinton reports next week, its taken nearly 5 months.

I did the Dukeries Rally with Stuart Grainger in his 1300cc Nissan Micra. It was to be Stuarts 1st gravel rally, and 1st Multi venue rally. The day started steadily with Stuart getting used to breaking on the slippy stages. On the second stage we pushed a bit harder, but a bit too much into one Square left, were ran up the banking on the outside. The rest of the day went pretty well, apart from us loosing the rearing bumper just before service. We ended up finishing 80th overall, 24th 1400 and 5th in class.




The Quinton was a new experience for me, both new stages and being the oldest member of the crew. I was to sit alongside 17 year old Matt Griffin in the Rallyschool.co.uk Nissan Micra F1000 car.

This was to be Matt's 3rd rally, but this didn't show as we started the 1st stage, Matt showed great maturity and raw speed. We had a great trouble free day which we both really enjoyed.

Long time no update.

Well since I last updated my blog, things have changed dramatically.

I competed in he SMC stages, but we had to retire due to keep breaking drive shafts on the front left wheel, and we decided it was best to quit while we still had the car in one piece.

Two weeks after weeton, I did the Lee Holland Memorial at Anglesey, with Darren Doherty in his N10 Impreza. We had a cracking weekend, and managed to get 6th overall. This was while having to avoid using 3rd gear after the 4th stage as it semed alot nosier than the rest. We also got 2nd in class D.

Things seemed to go quite after the Lee holland, until I managed to get a late ride on the RBS International Manx , and by last minute I mean 2 days before I had to sail across to the Isle of Man. Unfortunately, we didnt have time to do a proper recce, but this was the least of our problems, as we had to retire on the 4th stage with fuel problems. This mean that we would leave the island a day early having covered less than a quarter of the event. I did the event with Lee Perry in his Escort WRC.

2 weeks after the Manx I got a phone call asking me to do the Jim Clark International with 2007 Citroen C2R2 UK Champion, Martin Laverty. This was to be my 1st International event. After some franctic running around to get everyting organsided in just 2 days. We set off on the Thursday night. Having never meet Martin, sat in a C2 or used International timing, I could tell it was to be a challenge.



We didnt have the best of starts to the rally, when on the 1st 2 stages, the intercom wasn't working meaning that Marting had to drive the stages blind. At service we managed to sort the intercom woes out, and then have 2 good stages (the 3rd being cancelled). But then after 2nd Service, we hit trouble which would plague us for the rest of the event. Un be known to us, the fan wasnt working, this caused the car to overheat. But we didnt realise it was the fan until the last 3 stages of the event as our thoughts were all on fuel problems. We managed to finish the event though in 37th, but we had to incure major penalties to keep the car running. We also dropped 20 minutes in just 4 stages on SAatyrday and about the same again on Sunday.

I will update you with my most recent events: Dukeries Rally, Ypres Rally and Quinton Stages later this week....

SMC Stages, Weeton - 30th March

Tomorrow I will be taking part in the SMC Stages at Weeton Army Barracks. I am doing the event alongside Ian Sibbert in a Escort WRC. We are seeded at 16 for the event as Ian hasn't done much for the past 2 years. We hope we can demollish our seeding.

I am hoping that this event will lead to more events with Ian, and a fuller program than last year.

Weeton is notorious for being a car breaker, due to the roughness and the hidden kerbs. We are hoping we can avoid all of there obsticles and get a good clean run.

New Year, New driver and New Car.

Well seeing as last year I did my 1st ever forest rally and my 1st ever event on notes, I think my 1st event of this year will be a big step up.

My 1st event will be this Sunday (10th Feb) on the Riponian Rally in Yorkshire. I will be doing the event with Yuk Hodgson in his Honda S2000 engined Escort Mk1. As well as this being possibly the fastest car I have competed in it will also be the first time I have used maps in the Trees, so I am very nervous.

We are seeded at car 41, but are hoping to better this. Its not long since that Yuk came back to rallying after a lay off. Before his lay off he was one of the most sideways and entertaining drivers in the UK, so it looks like I will have alot of fun.

Im Back

Well since the Dukeries, not much has happened really, which is a huge shame.

I did a road rally at the end of October, which was huge test of my strength and navigational skills..and the pressure really got to me. It had been 2 years since I had done a road rally, so the technique was a little rusty and we were running as Semi Experts.

The night started well, with using not having any problem or me making any mistakes, then I let myself down, and made the simplest of errors at a Cross Roads. With myself, frustrated the night just seemed to get worse, I mad silly little mistakes (nothing major) just time consuming. Anyhow, it was a long night, a little too long, and I cant remember much due to tiredness. We made it to the finish in 25th place which I was happy with.

I also did the G-O-N Cambrian Rally, based around Llandudno on the 3rd November with Paul in the 205. We were once again seeded last 1400, and going for the finish. We started at about 9:15 from the center of Llandudno, from here we had a 30min run too Pemachno, on this run out both myself and Paul, heard a weird grinding noise, the same one we heard on the Humberside. Thankfully, this noise soon disappeared, and we could concentrate on the stage.

Stage one, was a steady start which allowed Paul to get back into the swing of things since its over 7 months since his last event. We were pleased to get through stage 1 after seeing many cars off, some mechanical and some in sorry states. Stage 2 was alot better, we got into a good flow in the first half, but this was halted when we came across the rolled car of Gemma Wheeler, who was blocking the stage, thankfully she was ok and were ok to carry on. After this we got back into a good swing once again and started to get back on time with the cars around us.

Stage 3 was another good one, which again was halted when we had to do a 3 point turn to get round a very very tight hairpin left. This cost us around 20 seconds, which meant we had dropped another chunk of time to the cars around us.

Stages 4 and 5 we really enjoyed, the forest of cloceanog suited Paul alot more and he managed to get used to the car alot more, and started to carry more speed, and started to trust the tyres. We had no problems through these two stages and we headed of to 2nd service.

Stage 6 was a repeat of stage 1, this meant it was fairly rutted in places, but on the whole the stage was very smooth, and very grippy. This meant Paul really started to get going, and used alot more road and speed. Unfortunately there was steep hill halfway through the stage, and the small power of the car meant we lost time up the hill.

Overall we were happy with our rally and our finish. And as for next year, who knows....