The Saltire Classic Rally was very enjoyable, the first thing that caught us out was looking at the diagrams for the tests. I had formed a picture in my head of the route and the at the first corner instead of a 90 left found more of a 45. So something else to add to the list of things learnt. Don’t take diagrams at face value.

We carried out a repair, when we lost water on test 3. Fortunately the car did not overheat, but we debated whether to skip the regularity and
go straight to TC2. The "never quit" spirit kicked in and we decided to do the regularity, which turned out more enjoyable than I thought it would be.

Using the speedo to measure the distance always meant we would never be that accurate but we got a good routine going of Amy calling out the distance and NOW as the time came up and myself checking the mileage and adjusting the speed accordingly. This worked up to the ITC but the change of speed caught us out. Amy restarted the stop watch OK but I hadn't thought about checking the mileage as we drew up and had no real idea where we were to the RFC. Another lesson learnt.

We got 3 maximums - twice on the Quarry when the car stalled and took ages to
restart - I believe this was due to the fuel frothing in the twin 40's as the carbs don't have enough flex due to the air filter touching the chassis rail - some work required and another lesson learnt.

I had thought I could learn the tests but found this did not work the first time round and need a better plan for calling the correct route. I saw David's bluetooth headset and thought that was a very neat solution to hearing over the noise. Another lesson learnt.

I felt we had made a lot of mistakes and had done badly, in my eyes. But looking over the test results began to see that we had done pretty well. On occasions where we know we made mistakes that had cost us time we were still on an average time and sometimes even in the top ten. On the hobbit out we were second fastest and twice we cleaned the Homer straight, although the first time we collected penalties for hitting 2 cones. Simply by having a different tyre we could have shaved a couple of seconds of on some of the tests.

So the car is quick enough, the driver still has it, but needs to calm down a bit and learn to be neat and tidy around the cones.

We got home but not without problems, however they were unrelated to the days events. From Perth we developed an intermittent power loss which is either fuel or ignition, which on the motorway when the hard shoulder ran out was an interesting experience leaping from emergency lay-by to lay-by. Never have 8 miles felt like eternity and then the thought of crossing the Forth Road Bridge with nowhere to go. Well we made it with a few more grey hairs, and as they say its character building.

But all in all an enjoyable day.

I plan to do the Millfield Autotest - good practice before Rally in the Park on 11 March.


 

Updated 28 February 2007
Webmaster - Jim Paterson