GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

A brief update from the last 2 months

Devils Tour Road Rally - 26th March 2016
This event was a similar format to last year with Special Tests in the afternoon and evening, followed by a Jogularity section and a 60 mile night route over Salisbury Plain. Carrie was navigating and we were seeded 5 out of 31 entries.
The weather Saturday afternoon was terrible, steady rain and strong winds, and we were very grateful to the marshals for standing out in it. We were going steadily and were 5th overall at the supper halt with under a minute covering the top 7 cars.



After supper we headed out to the Jogularity, about 15 miles with 3 controls. We got a bit confused getting to the start of the section but once we were going it went well, just a few seconds late at each control.
Next there was a long drive over to the eastern side of Salisbury Plain for the first night section. After competing last year, we decided to take it steadily and stop to work out any of the tricky diagrams and not as map sections. This worked well and we were lucky not to see many other cars, allowing us to concentrate on what we were doing, and we only dropped 3 minutes in the 60 miles. I thought some crews would have cleaned it, but when we arrived at the finish we were surprised to find the quickest crew had dropped 2 minutes, another was on 3 and another on 5.
When the results came out, we were 3rd overall, just over 30s behind the winners, so a good result and thanks to Carrie for navigating.




Wethersfield Targa Rally - 24th April 2016
Run by Chelmsford MC with 15 Tests and a full entry of 70 cars.
The Tests are quite long and complicated as it's a big airfield and Derek felt ill when he navigated in 2015 so Carrie sat in with me, and I navigated for Derek in his Peugeot 205 Rallye.
We made a bad start, getting slightly lost on the first Test, setting a time which was 28th quickest and had another bit of confusion on Test 3 so after the first loop Carrie and I were 12th. By lunch we had got up to 4th and in the afternoon we had a good run to finish 2nd overall, just 3s behind the winner and over a minute ahead of 3rd.

Derek had a good day in the 205, getting used to a fresh engine although it wasn't running perfectly, finishing 20th overall and 4th in class


Woodbridge Targa Rally - 22nd May 2016
With the Classic Tracks not running this year, I headed back to Essex again for this event run by Wickford AC. Derek was navigating for me and I was navigating for him as we've done at many Woodbridge Targa's before. The airfield hadn't been used for 18 months so the infamous Buddleia bushes had grown back beside the runways and disused buildings. We were running first out of 60 entries and spent the first loop finding the best route through the bushes for everyone else to follow!

Our times were pretty good and the Test layouts didn't change between the runs so we made up a lot of time on the second runs and were 5th at lunch. Only a few seocnds separated 2nd to 5th, but the leader was well ahead. After lunch we did the same Tests twice in the opposite direction, with Derek driving first so I could see where the tricky bits were. By the end of the day I had just scraped into 2nd, with another Mk2 Escort very close behind in 3rd and 4th (as it was being double driven) but still a minute behind the winners.

Derek was going very well after having the 205 tuned and fitting some worn trackday tyres, finishing 16th and 3rd in class


It will probably be August before I'm back out in Fly which should give me time to finish some improvements I've been working on for the past few months...

[mexicotait]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

That's brilliant gavin cheers

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

That's a coincidence, someone asked the same last weekend

I modified it a while ago by cutting the ball joint off and drilling a 6mm hole through the end of the arm.
Then I welded another arm on the end of the rod with another 6mm hole in it.
To clamp the cables, I drilled 2 x 2mm holes in an M6 screw so the throttle cables could pass through and clamped them with nuts on the M6 screw. There's also solderless nipples on the ends of the cables just to make sure they don't go anywhere!
The throttle cable adjustment screws / guides go through the original square hole in the bracket which has a bit of 3mm plate welded over it and 2 holes drilled for them.
A bit fiddly to tighten up so I did it with the bracket unbolted then bolted it to the manifold afterwards.

Difficult to get a decent picture, but I hope you get the idea
The head of the screw is on the right, hidden behind the hose, and the bit of slotted angle is only there for the extra throttle spring.





Thanks

[mexicotait]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Hi gavin
Notice you have twin cables running on the twin choke
Can you show a close up picture of how yours are attached the carb linkage?

[mjr]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Great result on The Devils Tour Gavin !
Glynn and I marshalled on a test during the day and were on the Plain at PC18 in the night.
FLY looked and sounded great all the time.

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Bath Festival Road Rally - 27/28th February 2016

My first rally of the year and due to the popularity of the event, the organisers had increased the max entry to 70 cars, with 66 starting on the night.
George was navigating after an 18 month break from night events (due to work commitments) so we went out on a 12 car a week before to get some time in the car.
(Run by Cheltenham MC, we had a sensible night and came 2nd, the main problem being the lighting stalk failing on the way to the first control which I fixed by running a cable direct from the cut out switch to the fuse box, but by the time I'd done this we were late leaving the control!)

The Bath Festival had a different format this year with no Special Tests, but 20 miles of forests and other tracks (previously used on the Tests) being part of the road sections. I was trying some new Dmack forest tyres and was a bit worried on the first few sections when the tracks were very slippery and there was no grip, but the later forests were a lot drier and they were working well, and pretty good on the tarmac too.
At petrol we were 8th overall, over 3 minutes behind the leaders, but we were finding the slots well and were happy with how everything was going.
We had a good dice with the car in front of us, Dan and Nick Darkin in a Proton Satria - they were quicker on the tarmac but we could catch them on the loose!

The 2nd half was much more road based with just a few farmyards and triangles to negotiate. We kept up a good pace and apart from a missing a couple of slots near the end, it all went well. At the finish we were pleased to be 7th overall as it was a large entry, and this gives me 99 points towards defending my Premier Championship title

Many thanks to Dave Whittock and the rest of Bath Motor Club, and thanks to all the marshals who manned nearly 90 controls through the night, some doing 2 controls. And thanks to George for a great job on the maps

My next event is the Devils Tour next weekend on Salisbury Plain with Carrie navigating

[onecamohv]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

thats unbelievable for a relatively standard shell, incredible use out of one car, i think its more than paid its due!

[alladdin]

GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

That's some history 👍

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

It's 25 years ago today that I bought FLY

Some years I did many events, other years just one or two...

86 Road Rallies (3 wins), 23 Stage Rallies (best 4th overall), 14 Gymkhanas / Targa Rallies (5 wins), 2 seasons of Hillclimbs and Sprints, numerous other Autotests, 12 Cars, Scatters and one Autocross.

Currently sat in the workshop, all ready for this year's events.

Thanks to everyone who's helped out, given advice, and/or navigated for me over the years

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

I've registered for the Premier Championship in 2016 and the first event I'm doing is the Bath Festival at the end of Feb

On the last event I'd scraped the front wing on a wall, and reversed into another one turning round in a hurry
While straightening the wing I found a crack in the door pillar so took the door and wing off to repair it



Filled the front wing


And rear quarter


I've also changed the head gasket, water pump and I've got some more upgrades planned but that'll have to wait until the spring

[sholdowa]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

^^^ what Graham said!

[Graham]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

[mexicotait]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Well done gavin
This championship looks good

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

The Premier Rally Championship 2015 - or the reason I've done so many events this year...

The brainchild of the late HRCR Vice President and founder member Philip Young, this new national Road Rally championship was organised by the HRCR and allowed competitors to accrue points from a range of 19 Road Rallies, 15 Historic Road Rallies, plus any 3 Endurance Rallies and any 3 Targa Rallies, with the best 10 scores to count. The scoring system was different to normal as the number of points increased in proportion to the number of starters on each event, so coming 4th on an event with 40 starters would give 100 points, the same as coming 2nd on an event with 20 starters, and up to 108 points available for an overall win.

There is an overall championship as well as Drivers, Navigators and Allrounders (for competitors who drive on some and navigate on others of the eligible events).

As I have been regularly competing on these types of events over the past few years, it seemed a good championship to have a go at and looking at the included events I was sure competing on 10 rounds wouldn’t be too difficult…

1. Bath Festival Road Rally – February 7th
FLY with Bob Rutherford.
2nd out of 56 starters = 106 points.

2. Devil’s Tour Road Rally – April 4th
FLY with Carrie.
15th out of 34 starters = 66 points.

3. Wethersfield Targa Rally – April 19th
FLY with Derek.
3rd out of 72 starters = 106 points.

4. Leukaemia Historic Rally – May 16th
Scimitar with Carrie.
3rd out of 47 starters = 104 points.

5. Classic Tracks Targa Rally – May 24th
FLY with Carrie.
7th out of 75 starters = 101 points.

6. Debden Targa Rally – June 7th
FLY with Derek.
1st out of 55 starters = 108 points.

7. East Anglian Classic Historic Rally – June 20th
Scimitar with Carrie.
1st out of 35 starters = 107 points.

8. Ross Traders Historic Rally – July 18th
Scimitar with Ross.
Retired = 10 points for starting.

9. St Wilfrids Historic Rally – August 9th
Scimitar with Carrie.
10th out of 58 starters = 93 points.

This was the last Historic Rally I would do this year as the remaining 2 events did not fit into my calendar or were too expensive. With 7 good scores so far, one average score and one retirement, I was doing well in the Drivers championship, but my plans to compete for the Allrounders award did not happen as the 2 Endurance Rallies I wanted to navigate on were both cancelled. So I decided to do 3 more Road Rallies before the end of the year and Carrie agreed to navigate on all of them.

10. Mercian Road Rally – September 19th
Another new event for us, run in the Coventry / Rugby area, this event was 150 miles of plot and bash tulip navigation combined with some tight sections using whites and a couple of Tests just before the halfway halt. We had a good night, Carrie enjoyed the navigation and we were pretty quick on the whites and the 2 Tests. Although we didn’t know at the time, we were leading at halfway but lost time on the final few sections when thick fog descended and I backed off to make sure we finished. We got a special award for being fastest on the Tests and came 4th out of 40 starters = 100 points.
This shallow ford was a bit of a surprise, despite being next to a village called Traitors Ford


11. Dansport Road Rally – November 7th
I’d done this event with George in 2012 but we didn’t have a good night and the route had too many link sections between the short competitive sections, but this year the event started in Bakewell in the middle of the best Derbyshire lanes. We started badly, missing the first codeboard on a Test round Bakewell Showground, but out in the lanes everything was going smoothly, despite being overtaken by a few locals and missing a few of the trickier not as map sections, losing time by turning round and going back. There was a lot of whites, a great section round a quarry and later on a couple of laps around a large farm estate, as well as the rougher sections. Carrie got all the plotting done just in time and was calling the maps very well in the 2nd half when there was thick patchy fog on the hills. When we reached the finish we were pleased to be 8th and headed home. When we checked the final results later, we had moved up to 7th (as the first codeboard was scrubbed, not sure why). Out of 43 starters this was 94 points, making up for the non-finish on the Ross Traders.





12. Guy Fawkes Rally – November 21st
Another event I had done a few years before, this event is run by South Hams Motor Club in Devon with 99 competitive miles out of a 115 mile route. There was a disappointing entry of 21 cars with us at Car 6. There were 4 sections, the first 3 on marked maps given to us when we left the start for a short run out to the first section. The maps were marked quite well, but with a lot of not as map triangles it was going to be a difficult night. Straightaway I missed the first junction (as did a lot of other crews) but we just made it into the control on time, only to drop a minute on the next section. By the time we had got to the petrol halt, we were 10 minutes down, but everyone around us was dropping similar time so we hoped we wouldn’t be too far down. The 3rd section went well, only dropping 2 minutes in 25 miles, then we had the 4th section which was plot and bash. Carrie usually does well on these, but with the tricky lanes and difficult junctions, we had to stop a few times to make sure we had the correct route and didn’t miss any codeboards or controls. At the finish we were disappointed to be 8th overall but the 72 points was 8 more than I had scored on the Devils Tour, so definitely worth the trip.

Subject to final confirmation, over the last 3 events I had gained enough points to win the Drivers Championship from Steve Entwistle (who competes on all the Historic events in a Mini) and Simon Harris (who drove on a mixture of 13 events).

It has been an enjoyable year – many thanks to Bob, Derek, Ross and Carrie for their navigational contributions!

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

There's plenty of people hiring out cars nowadays, not sure of the costs though...