GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

East Anglian Classic 21st June 2014

I had a few days off, finished refitting the Scimitar and changed all the cooling pipes to silicon ones before picking George up on Friday lunchtime for the long drive to Norfolk, arriving just before scrutineering opened. There were 45 cars entered this year and we were running car 5 after finishing 3rd last year.

The event started with a long regularity out of the start to take us over to the first test venue. We'd set the trip against the measured mile, but it was under reading a fraction on the regularity section so we were early at the first 3 controls, then got held up following a local which made us late into the 4th control, so not a good start

The first 4 tests were at a farm last used 2 years ago and I remembered it being quite rough, but the tracks had been regraded since then and it was good this year. There were 2 tests run twice, and they all went well, we were equal quickest on one run and in the top 5 on the others

Back out on the roads for the second regularity, I asked George to adjust the trip slightly to try and make it more accurate, but I went the wrong way and we were still early at the next control. George adjusted it the other way and it was a lot better after that, we got to the next control spot on time and the next 2 we were very close. This took us to 6 tests at Thorpe Abbotts airfield, 3 layouts run twice, the first just cones on a concrete runway but the other 2 more interesting around the perimeter track on a mixture of gravel and broken concrete. We struggled on the first layout, only managing 10th quickest each time, but the first run of the second layout we were fastest by 5s as a lot of crews went the wrong side of a cone and got a 10s penalty. On the other runs we were 5th or 6th, definitely closer to the top crews than last year

The lunch halt was also here and we sat out on the grass chatting to the other crews in the sunshine. At this stage we were 6th and the only worry I had with the Scimitar was the steering wheel moving up and down a little. This was traced to the bottom u/j sliding on the pinion splines so I did the pinch bolt up even tighter which helped a little. I'd fitted a new Rally Design forged coupling during the week and the original one had a bit of play, but it's not a tight enough fit on the splines, hence the movement - I'll have to buy a proper one for the next event

After lunch there were 3 regularities in a row which sounds bad but the middle one was off road round an airfield so a different challenge to the normal ones. The first one went well, only dropping a few seconds here and there except for the final control where everyone was slightly late. The airfield regularity worked very well - we had a series of tulips defining the route of roughly 3 laps but slightly different each time - each tulip had a time beside it and we were managing to average 30mph without too much trouble although we were confused by the location of the final time control and arrived 18s early (most other crews had a similar problem). The 3rd regularity was ok, a bit early everywhere but no mistakes from George - I turned up a side road that turned out to be a farm track but George reversed the trip while I reversed out and we made up the time quickly

The next 4 final tests were back at Thorpe Abbotts, similar to the morning tests but run in the reverse direction with the 2 gravelly ones run as one long test, all done twice again. I was trying hard on these and on the second run through the longer one we started 30s behind a Triumph 2000 and managed to catch him at the finish, not bad on a 3 minute test

The final regularity was plot and bash, made slightly harder this year by giving the navigation at each control rather than all of it at the first control. First section George got down quickly and we were just 1s out at the control. The second section was a 'herringbone' type of navigation which George is not that keen on - she couldn't make it work all the way, so we stopped briefly and I couldn't make it work either, but we had the first few miles on the map so continued driving while trying to work it out. Finally we realised what we had done wrong but all this meant we were 26s late. The 3rd section worked better, only a few seconds early here at the final control.

At the finish we handed our paperwork in and had a buffet dinner while waiting for the results - this is what happened next

18:20 - George went in to check the results and was surprised to find we were 1st overall - a lot of crews has made a mistake on the first plot and bash section which cost them a minute's penalty

18:42 - Clerk of the Course signed the results as Provisional with us 1st overall

19:15 - The crew in 2nd made a formal appeal to the Stewards, paid the appeal fee of £50, their original query to the Clerk of the Course having been turned down.
The appeal was about the navigation for the first plot and bash section which included a type of navigation which they claimed they had not seen before and as it had not been explained, this contravened a Blue Book Regulation which states competitors must be given all the information to work out the correct route.
The stewards held a hearing with the crew in question and allowed their appeal

19:30 - New Provisional Results were published with us 5th overall. The crew in 2nd were ironically still in 2nd, with the 3rd placed crew moving up to 1st

19:48 - Results published as final and awards given out - we had left by then

So we were 1st for over an hour then finished 5th
Thanks to George for a great job all round

Pic from Andy Manston - there's a cone just out of sight on the left and George is pointing to the next one!

[mario r h santos]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

At least you could savour 1st place for an hour which is more than most can say! Well Done Gavin!

Cheers a congrats for your nice writting,

Mário Santos.

[Graham]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

cool, strange result, but sounds like you had fun and you finished well whatever the results eventually said which is the important thing

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

Yes it was all a bit strange - we'd have been happy with 5th at the start, or even if the query had been sorted out before the results went provisional, but to drop down like (through no fault of our own) was disappointing

We were pleased with our speed round the tests, 4th this year on test times compared with 8th last year on similar tests and a similar entry, a few recent tweaks had definitely helped

Just a few minor things to sort out before the next event in July
- Lower steering joint is sliding on the splines, despite the pinch bolt being done up FT - this was a new Rally Design one I bought to replace the original which had some play in the U/J, but the RD one is obviously not to spec
- Indicator stalk broke due to the movement in the column caused by the above, so I've got a secondhand one coming
- Change front wheel bearings as I'm getting pad knock off on the bumpy sections

[mexicotait]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

Ive had a rally design one and it was too slack for my liking
In tge end i went for a burtons hd one which solved the problem

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

Ive had a rally design one and it was too slack for my liking
In tge end i went for a burtons hd one which solved the problem

That's good to know - sometimes it's difficult to tell if other suppliers use rally design ones or different ones

I must remember not to buy anything from Rally Design that needs making precisely
I bought a front wheel bearing for Fly a few weeks ago - the bearing race next to the hub nut was loose in the hub and even the oil seal is a metric size so also slips out easily

Thanks

[danknight72]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

I allways use parts from rally and competition equipment

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

Ross Traders Historic Rally - 19th July 2014

After the last event there wasn't much work required but I did change the loose U/J, reshimmed the steering rack, replaced the broken indicator switch and tried a proper Reliant window winder in the passenger door

This year the Ross Traders had a good entry of 52 cars with George and myself seeded at car 12, and the Scimitar Coupe of Richard Prosser and Andy Gibson at Car 7. As is usual on this event, there were 6 regularities with some navigation given out an hour before the start and some along the route. There were fewer tests this year, only 7 instead of the usual 15 due to the unavailability of Chepstow Racecourse, but the biggest difference to previous years was the interesting weather

After the briefing at the start, we plotted the navigation and with about 5 minutes to go, George tried the new improved window mechanism - she wound it down and it wouldn't come back up. With a lot of heavy rain forecast this would be a bit of a problem, so I hopped out and grabbed the top of the window, managed to pull it up and just left a few inches gap at the top to pass the clipboard to the marshals...

The day started nice and bright with a short test in Oakenhill Wood, a good forest track with 30 cones to slalom around and it was very slippery at the edges of the track (where they put the cones). Our time was ok but we clipped a couple of cones on the way through. Out on the road, the first regularity was already plotted and we were going well until we got to where we thought the 4th control would be, but there was no one there (you don't know where the controls are, but you get an idea with the distance from the previous one). We carried on gently while George checked the route, which was correct, so we continued until the next control who confirmed the marshal hadn't turned up for control 4. The other problem was we didn't know what speed we were supposed to be doing at control 5 as the speed change was based on the position of control 4. All very confusing and it does make you doubt that you have done it right. We sorted ourselves out and completed the section, 10 controls in total. We were rather early at the last couple, but by this time we were being followed by Car 2 who was doing exactly the same speed as us, giving us confidence we were on the right track.

Then we returned to Oakenhill Wood to complete the first test in the reverse direction. Our time was very similar and we only clipped one cone this time. Two more regularities followed, both plot and bash, but George got them down quickly and we had a good run through until the final section of Regularity 3. We came out to a T junction which didn't look right to me and a bit up the road I convinced George we must be on the wrong road, so we turned round and went back and tried the other way, which didn't work either. So George was right and there wasn't enough distance to the next control to make up the lost time, and we dropped 3 minutes here.

The next 2 tests were in a large car park of a factory and lunch was in their social club. About 5 minutes before we arrived, the heavens opened and we attempted the test in torrential rain with thunder and lightning overhead. Although the wipers were working well, the screen was very misted and I was having trouble seeing the cones. It was one of those situations where you had to laugh - George was laughing so much she could hardly tell me which side of the cones to go And when we got to the finish we had to do it again
Anyway we were quite slow round here but didn't hit any of the cones, and lunch was very good.

When we left lunch, we were 12th overall and the organisers decided to cancel the next 2 tests in the same car park due to the conditions, so we went straight to the next regularity. The Scimitar would demist ok on the road with the quarterlights open, but every time we stopped it would steam up again! We'd plotted this one over lunch and got held up on the first part by a local who was only doing 24mph when we wanted to do 26mph (!) and then forgot a speed change later on which cost us another 18s. The final 3 controls were on private land at Goodrich Castle which George knows well from competing on the Ross Endurance Rally for a few years. We got 2 of them right but the final one of 1/2 mile at 30mph was impossible to do in the time (as designed by the organisers) and we dropped 20s compared to the fastest cars time loss of 13s.

Next there were 2 more regularities - regularity 5 started well but the 2nd marshal's clock had broken so he resorted to using his wristwatch, but unfrotunately this was about 1m30s early leading to a lot of confusion for everyone. Regularity 6 went well all the way through and finally the weather was clearing up and we got to the final test at Goodrich Castle in beautiful sunshine. Although George had a diagram, she called all the bends from her memory of previous runs through and we set 5th quickest time which was a great way to finish the event

At the finish in Ross on Wye there was a good buffet dinner while we waited for the results. Due to the missing marshal on Reg 1, 3 of the 10 controls had to be scrubbed, and we (along with a couple of other crews) queried the marshals broken clock on Reg 5 and 2 controls were scrubbed here as well.

When the results went up, we were pleased to be 6th overall, a good improvement over 14th place in 2013

Richard Prosser and Andy Gibson had a good day in the Scimitar Coupe, setting similar test and regularity times to us, only spoilt by failing to write down a codeboard on the route which cost them a 5 minute penalty which put them down to 11th - without this they would have beaten us to 6th by 18s

Well done to the organisers and marshalls for coping with the conditions and very well done to George - when there are less tests, the navigator has a much greater influence on the result

It was good to do a localish event, despite the delay with the results, I was home, had washed the car and was relaxing by 9pm

Gavin

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

I didn't do any more events last year but used the Scimitar on the road occasionally
This year I'm hoping to do 4 or 5 and the first one was the Leukaemia Historic a few weeks ago

Before then I had a few jobs to do including sorting out the demisting, a loose wheel bearing and a spongy brake pedal

The original demisting fans (one in each footwell) never worked so I'd fitted some small blowers but they weren't powerful enough to demist, so this time I bought a pair of the largest ones I could fit



Cut a bigger hole and riveted some captive nuts to the fibreglass housing


Then re-used the original resistors to make them 2 speed


I haven't been out in the rain yet but I'm sure they will be fine

I replaced the wheel bearing but this didn't help with the brakes, they worked ok but took a couple of pumps to get a firm pedal, so I decided to bleed them and discovered the cause of the problem - the integral reservoir on the front circuit is too small and when the pads wore down the fluid level dropped so low that some air was sucked in
Anyway, after some bleeding, everything was back to normal and it's another item on the list to check after every event...

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

Leukaemia Historic Rally - 16th May 2015

This was the first historic I did after building the Scimitar in 2012 and the tests were very tight and difficult. Last year I navigated on it and the tests were a lot more open and enjoyable so I decided to have another go this year. The Leukaemia also has an 'Endurance' class for modern cars up to 1400cc and as George has an Endurance spec MG ZR she was also driving. This left me short of a navigator but having done 2 enjoyable events already this year with Carrie, she was persuaded to try a historic rally for the first time since 1996 when we came 2nd Post-Historic on the East Anglian Classic in the Capri RS3100 I had at the time.

I have a good system for doing Regularities, refined over the last 3 years with George, and after scrutineering Friday evening, I had laid out a 10 mile route to teach Carrie how to use the speed tables, what to do at each control and when there's a speed change, and this all went well.

The event was based at Chepstow Racecourse and we were seeded Car 10 out of 49. We were given the Regularity navigation an hour before the start and got them plotted quickly and went through the speed changes on each one so we knew what times and distances to reset the stopwatches and tripmeter. Before the first Regularity, we had 3 tests at the racecourse, 2 in tarmac car parks and one on a gravel track. These all went well, a bit slow on the first one, 4th quickest on the second and one of 7 cars to beat the 'bogey' time on the 3rd test (the bogey time is set at an average of 30mph and if you are quicker you are given the bogey time). Onto the first regularity, a short one with just one time control. Everything was going well until we reached the control which seemed to be very early and the time and distance didn't match with our calculations so we got a penalty of 1m 31s here

A short link section took us to 3 tests at Coombe Farm Estate, some lovely gravel tracks through woods and around fields, I remembered these from last year. Once again, a bit slow on the first one, but top ten times on the next 2. Regularity 2 followed with 3 time controls and this time everything worked well, we only dropped 5s overall Regularity 3 also had 3 time controls and the first section was quite long so I was a bit keen when I saw the marshal and went in too quickly dropping 10s, but the next 2 controls were better. This brought us to the coffee halt and a chance to catch up with some of the other competitors. Of the crews we spoke too, some had also been around 1m 30s out on the first Regularity and some had been spot on - we soon realised this was because of a different interpretation of the navigation, something to query with the organisers later...

Regularity 4 started straight out of the coffee halt, another 3 time controls and we dropped 9s in total. This took us to 2 tests at a large tarmac car park, either side of a ploughman's lunch at a nearby village hall. The 2 tests were identical and we were 5th each time. At lunch there were results up to the coffee halt and we were 10th but without the first Regularity we would have been around 5th.

On most historics, the Regularities get harder throughout the day and it was the same on the Leukaemia. Regularity 5 had 5 time controls over 20 miles and some tricky junctions to find. We caught a horse on one section and waited patiently until the rider found a good spot to let us past, then nearly went the wrong way at the next junction and we were a minute behind our schedule. Luckily this was a 20mph section and we managed to catch up to our schedule before we reached the next control, and overall only dropped 15s and also saw quite a few cars going in strange directions! Regularity 6 was the last one, 4 time controls but a lot of speed changes. It was a lovely day and a couple of times we forgot to change speed while looking at the view, remembering a few tenths of a mile later and managed to correct ourselves in time, we dropped 9s on these.

This left 7 tests before the finish, the first 3 at Coombe Farm again, reruns of the earlier ones and we went a lot quicker, 3rd, 4th then fastest on the last one here, 3s ahead of Howard Warren's Porsche 911
There was a new test on the outskirts of Caerwent, 4th quickest, then the final 3 back at the Racecourse, 3rd on the first one then joint fastest on the last 2

Sat in the canteen under the grandstand, we felt we had a good day and had seen various cars drop out or get lost (on the tests as well as the regularities), but we were still surprised to be listed 2nd overall when the first set of results were posted. We soon dropped to 3rd when a test time was corrected and although I queried the first Regularity twice with the organisers, they insisted their route was the correct one (it all hinged on how you treat a roundabout - is it one junction in total as they did, or one junction for each exit as we did) and our penalty stood, without it we'd have gone back to 2nd. We were beaten by the Porsche and also a Mini Cooper

George also had a good day, having teamed up with a very good navigator, she had some good test times and the regularities went well, she finished 5th overall and 1st Endurance car

We were very pleased with 3rd Overall, the Scimitar ran very well, nicknamed 'the jalopy' by Carrie, she was surprised how quick we were round some of the tests! Carrie did a great job on the Regularities - she's never had any trouble reading a map, but keeping your eye on 3 things at once is a lot harder!
She enjoyed the event and we've entered the East Anglian Classic in a couple of weeks...

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

East Anglian Classic - Saturday 20th June 2015

Run by Chelmsford Motor Club, the event is usually based in Norfolk but this year the organisers decided to move it closer to Chelmsford, which suited us as it is a couple of hours closer to home. There was a good entry of 39 cars with myself and Carrie seeded at Car 3.

The start and finish were at Elsenham Golf Club, very close to Stansted Airport and the route had 5 Regularities and 16 Tests, all the Test were at Wethersfield Airfield which we know very well, having competed and organised other events there over the years.

The first Regularity started well, we were spot on at the first control but then 7s and 14s early at the next 2 which was confusing as we thought we were on time but our distances weren't quite right. Anyway, we arrived at Wethersfield for the first 8 Tests, 4 different layouts all run twice, a mixture of concrete, tarmac and a tiny bit of gravel, I was using standard road tyres for a change and these worked well, we were fastest on 3 of them and 3rd or 4th quickest on the rest



Next there was a longer Regularity through the lanes of Essex and Cambridgeshire to the lunch halt in a Pub. Once again we were early everywhere despite adjusting the trip calibration to try and improve the accuracy, we dropped 48s in total which was not good when the best crews only dropped 10s. So it was a surprise to see we were 1st overall at this stage, but only by 1s from Jim Deacon / David Taylor's MGB Roadster. Our Test times had just about made up for the difficulties we were having on the Regularities



A third Regularity took us from lunch back to Wethersfield and this one was a bit harder, we only had 6 minutes to plot the route, but Carrie got it on the map quickly and we were a lot closer on this one, dropping 16s over the 3 controls. I had given up trying to adjust the trip and instead we were trying to be slightly late everywhere, not as easy as it sounds because on a longer section we needed to be later than on a short one! Back at Wethersfield it had started to rain and this made the Tests very greasy. The Tests were the same as the morning ones but run in the opposite direction. We were going well but I felt we were going slower than earlier and the other crews would catch us up, although there were quite a few going the wrong way at times, and we set 2 more fastest times



Back on the road for Regularities 4 and 5 to take us to the finish. The 4th one we had already plotted and this went well despite the heavy rain causing the windscreen to mist up every time we stopped at a control (the recently fitted large blowers were blowing well but it seems not all the air is getting to the windscreen...). The 5th one is always the hardest being 'plot and bash' and this time they gave us a bit of navigation as we left each control. Carrie did very well to get the route on the map quickly while I drove at the correct speed and we only had to stop once to check one junction, and did this soon after a control when we knew we could make up the time. There were 4 controls and we were close at all of them, although 2 of these were later cancelled as 10 cars were caught in a traffic jam when a tractor wanted to go into the gateway where the marshal was parked!

There was just a short run back to the finish and although the afternoon was good, I was sure the MGB would be ahead of us by now and probably a few other crews as well. There was a buffet meal at the end followed by an agonising wait for the final results...

1st Overall by 1m 22s


Last year's winner, John Ruddock was 2nd in his Mk1 Escort having made up time on the afternoon tests after a slow start, and the MGB was 3rd having dropped a minute getting lost on one Test

Very well done to Carrie, an excellent job on the maps and guiding me round the Tests, to come first on her 3rd Historic event is a great achievement.
It's also the first Historic I've won as a driver so I was very pleased too

And thanks to everyone at Chelmsford for organising the event and all the marshals who came out for the day

All photos courtesy of M & H Photography

[PaulAlex]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

Top result Gavin and Carrie!! Nice to see a different car being used too

[Graham]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

Fantastic, well done

[alladdin]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

Top result Gavin and Carrie!! Nice to see a different car being used too

X2
Makes the hard work worthwhile

[headbolt]

Re: GavinR's Scimitar Historic Rally Car

I saw the results in motoring news last week but wasn't sure it was you congratulations on the result and yet another fantastic write up make all those long nights worth every minute