The first four stages are on Friday and regular co-driver Mike Hughes couldn't get a day pass from the Demon Headmaster. The job therefore fell to Steve Griffith - the old team back in action again. This was Steve's first rally after a few years of 'retirement' following his huge accident in the forests - not with me I hasten to add!
Steve offered up Kenny Rowlands and Fagan to run our chase car, joining Scott, Rupert, Jack and Tony in our faithful LT46 service van. With that lot sharing one of Cornwall's finest mobile homes, we would at least have some great craic!
Meeting at Gordano Services on the M5 from all parts of the UK then was the location for Steve's first look at the car. It was also mine as I'd not seen it in one piece since Xmas! SG Motorsport had been fitting most of the parts that I had been sourcing in the previous months. I say most, as our 'piece-de-resistance', a pair of kevlar doors from the rallycross car that had been carefully repaired and repainted, were a disaster. The doors on a Clio V6 are reputed to weigh 4.5 STONE each! So, kevlar ones at a few grammes was a bit like running without a passenger. However, Scott and I had spent some hours fitting the drivers door but when the passenger door was offered up, it may as well have been for a Mondeo. It was miles out, so steel doors it is for a while until we can resolve the issue.
After a run down to Cornwall the squad had a chance to look round all the new gear:
As usual, Tony was the only one working while everyone else stood around admiring the new polycarbonate windows, the new carbon Recaros and the new Ohlins suspension.
Griffo on the other was just wondering what he had let himself in for.
Along with the new Ohlins suspension, we had fitted the modified front subframe from the rallycross car in an effort to make the car more stable by increasing the wheelbase. You can read about these mods in the Technical section. Suffice to say that we were hoping for good things but slightly worried about the amount of castor that the car was displaying.
At scrutineering, a man checked whether we had an engine and was suprised to find that we had a spare in the boot!
Off to the first of the stages around the holiday camp in the dark. Although these first stages were only 'Mickey Mouse' at a mile or so, they were full of really tight hairpins and we soon found out that our demon modifications were not quite what we wanted. The amount of castor on the front meant that it was virtually impossible to straighten the car after a tight turn. In four stages we dropped to 39th!
Undeterred we returned to service in the knowledge that Steve Furzeland was behind us in his Subaru WRC and we both knew that the long airfield stages were where the rally would be won or lost.
Jack caught trying to steal a set of alloys for his own Clio......
The next day we started a climb through the field with two runs through Boconnoc, a country estate, where we showed that we can lift a rear wheel even with all that weight in the back.
On to the airfield stages and we could finally stretch the old girls legs. The castor issue was much less of a problem here as hopefully we use less lock and certainly I was having a great time hooning round and being able to make the V6 sing.
It was then that the Clio's temper showed itself with the fastest and most lurid slide that I've ever got away with! On the second lap, I'm not sure whether I just overdid it or whether the tyres were too soft for 12 miles and just let go. Either way, we came round a right hander pretty much flat in top and the car slid, I corrected only to have it snap back the other way and we exited backwards at about 85mph.
Steve was busy looking out of the side window hoping to guide us away from the workmans hut about 1/2 mile off the main runway! When we regained our composure Steve shouted "What the f*** happened there?" I calmly explained that "Oh yeah, it does that!"
On the next run through Griffo made it quite clear that this was the corner where we had spun - so I was careful and promptly threw it into the gravel on the next bend!
Having escaped, twice, I now decided that discretion was the better part of valour and I was worried that Steve might try to escape - so I took it a bit easier on the next few stages. We were now hovering just inside the top 20 but the car was taking quite a bit of punishment and we were starting to hear funny noises from the transmission. A couple of stages followed at Portreath which is a mixture of tight twisty stuff like Caerwent and wide open runways. On one corner we saw Dave Price looking for the rear wheel which had come off his Escort RWD into the ajoining fields. On each lap, he was further and further into the field - still looking! Cornwall is pretty hard on cars!
Back at Predannack, we started the stage and could see what looked like smoke ahead of us - finally we rounded a corner to find a huge pall of black smoke which turned out to be Chris O'Connor's Darrian, wedged on a bonfire of bracken at the side of the road. Within minutes it had burned to a crisp - all the crews stopped but there was nothing anyone could do to save Chris's pride and joy. At least Chris and Mark got out ok but the whole thing visibly shook Griffo.
We returned to service a bit deflated but one mile out, the transmission squealed enough and we arrived it service jammed in 3rd gear and with the clutch on fire. Two stages left and we were out.
Rupert started to cry but Tony just fell asleep! Thanks guys, we'll get there soon....
