1999 Part 2 It was now July and time for a few events further west
First was Azimghur at Colerne Airfield, a venue which didn't really suit DVY with a lot of long straights and a round of the Welsh championship with quite a few Darrians turning out. We finished 8th / 3rd
Next was Fat Albert at Keevil Airfield, running for the second year and the first time in the ACSMC championship so it was a new venue to a lot of us
Having the noise check in the middle of the nadgery bit gave us a good chance to have a look at this broken concrete section, but it didn't seem bumpy enough to cause any problems
So we got off to a quick start, setting 2nd fastest times on the first 2 stages, only being beaten by Haydn Morgan in a 1.6 Corsa, but by Stage 4 we were down to 3rd behind Colin Early's 2.0 Darrian T9. On stage 5 Haydn's electric power steering failed, slowing him down by about 10s a stage which was enough to put us back into 2nd, 3s behind Colin
Stage 6, the last one before the stages were reversed in the afternoon, I was trying really hard, but on the last time out of the hairpin at "Dingly Dell" I flicked the tail out a bit too much and there was a loud crunch from the back end as I hit the gate post on the way out
We only dropped another 1s to Colin and during lunch break, Richard and I set to work with the very large hammer (I always carry 3 sizes of hammer in case of need
) and made the rear quarter look respectable again with the help of a large roll of tank tape donated by Wilf Jones. Meanwhile David and Carrie walked back to the hairpin to collect the ally rear spoiler that had been ripped off as well, which turned out to be in quite good condition
Stage 7 we took 5s out of Colin and another 11s on Stage 8 so we were well into 1st by now. But charging up the leaderboard was Mike Tregoning in his 2.5 Millington Darrian T9, recovering after a very slow 1st stage and was now up to 2nd just 5s behind us
Stage 9 and Mike pulled another 4s back, so one stage left and 1s in it, I really went for it on the last stage, going 4s quicker and, with Mike only improving by 1s we were tied on times, but got 1st Overall because of our better 1st Stage time
Probably the most memorable part of this event, was going up to collect our pots, with all of the Welsh and South West crews wondering who we were
and coming 1st in an old Mk2 Escort, with Darrians 2nd, 3rd and 4th
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