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.