GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

[GavinR]

Re: GavinRs Mk2 Rally Car FLY

Yes we had a great time, so nearly hit a lot of things (those cow sheds were narrow and slippy ) but so much fun driving down tracks and round farms

Results will turn up in the post sometime I think, be interesting to see which Tests we were quick on as there was quite a mixture...

[GavinR]

Re: GavinRs Mk2 Rally Car FLY

I was out on another Chelmsford Gymkhana a few weeks ago, this time at Honington Airfield near Bury St Edmunds. As this is still an active air base, all the airfield is nice smooth tarmac

It was organised by Owen Turner who is a top Endurance Rally driver and his gymkhanas are always hard work as he uses every corner possible to make up the tests

4 tests were laid out and we started off by doing them on their own, then in pairs and finally 3 of them together to make up a long test to finish. In between we had a few laps of the skid pan, scoring marks for "flamboyance" instead of speed and a couple of simple Regularity sections (these made up the Skill Tests which are always a part of the gymkhanas)

It was a very warm day and with the long tests a lot of cars were having overheating problems, but Fly ran faultlessly, just having to swap tyres a few times when they wore out. I was also navigating for Derek in his 205, and Cath was also driving Fly with Matt Endean navigating. Cath was going better than when she had last driven Fly at Debden, finding the good tarmac a lot easier, but struggling with the lack of power steering

On the longer Tests, Derek was starting to feel rough, so Cath jumped in to navigate the afternoon ones, I just kept up my normal speed while everyone else struggled

I was 2nd or 3rd most of the day, but fastest times on the last 3 tests saw me take 1st Overall by 34s from Matt Fowle's 106

Cath was pleased but exhausted to finish 16th, and Derek was happy with 23rd (his 205 is completely standard) out of the 58 starters

I'm currently doing a few bits on Fly in readiness for the Neath Valley Stages on 13th August, it'll be my first time in the forest since 1997

[Graham]

Re: GavinRs Mk2 Rally Car FLY

another great result there gavin

[GavinR]

Re: GavinRs Mk2 Rally Car FLY

So it's been 4 years since I've done a stage event in Fly, and that was with the cossie in, so this weekend I made a start on the various things that will be required for the Neath Valley

Crack in the boot floor has been getting bigger


I had a comment on a Road Rally about the rear cage mounts looking a bit weak, so I've reinforced them and boxed them in, after removing the rear seats and side windows for access


The fuel tank leaks when full from an old sender unit in the top - I had to remove it to weld up the boot floor, so poured fibreglass resin all over it to seal it


Boot floor crack welded up then plated over - it's the stress of the panhard rod mount that causes the problem


Plenty more to do, but mainly safety features rather than repairs

[GavinR]

Re: GavinRs Mk2 Rally Car FLY

I made a lot of progress last week, painted everything I'd welded, got the fuel tank and pumps back in, rear seats, side windows, and fitted a lot of stuff from DVY - seats, harnesses, intercoms, camera mount and handheld fire extinguisher





Then on Sunday I organised and competed on a grass gymkhana for Tavern Motor Club and came 2nd out of 16 entries

And tonight I've fitted the plumbed in fire extinguisher which was serviced last week, just got to make the mud flaps and sort out some secondhand forest tyres and I'll be ready, I've even ordered the Pacenotes from Brian Patterson

There's about 60 entries at the moment and 4 of us in the Road Rally class, the others being 2 BMW's and an Astra

[GavinR]

Re: GavinRs Mk2 Rally Car FLY

Neath Valley Stages - Sat 13th August 2011

As I had no events in DVY planned this month I decided to do something different and take Fly back into the forest
Georgina was happy to co-drive although slightly worried about reading pacenotes for the first time in 4 years, but my last time in a forest was 1997 so I knew it would be a slow start
I'd also asked fellow Tavern member Hugh Currell to come and service for us as I wasn't sure how long we'd have in service or how Fly would stand up to a forest event

The event was based around Walters Arena and was practically a single venue with 2 stages run twice followed by a 5th stage combining the first 2 giving nearly 40 stage miles and only 6 miles of link sections
They had a good entry of 61 moderns and over 20 historics and a late entry gave us 5 in the Road Rally class

Scrutineering was slow but we passed without any problems and sat around in service for a few hours waiting to start, keeping busy by changing the rear forest tyres for some chunkier ones as everything was rather wet and mucky, and cooking bacon butties on the gas stove

Stage 1
Everything went well but I felt I was driving very slowly, not sure of how fast I could go round the corners and there were some steep hills and muddy sections which sapped the power and at times it felt like we had 2 front punctures, I could only describe the conditions as "claggy". George was reading the notes well except when I made a comment about how slow we were going and she lost her place

Stage 2
This was just round a corner from stage 1 and the organisers warned us about a big ditch on the outside of the first corner, a very tight hairpin, which had already given 5 cars problems, so we went very carefully round it. This stage was a lot more open in places with some nice flowing bits but still some twisty sections. Near the end we passed an Astra in our class beached on the outside of a corner having nearly gone into the ditch, but a few corners later I nearly did the same thing, failing to spot the hairpin slot I was supposed to take (even though George had called it) and headed for a more obvious slot into the spectator car park and we bounced over a shallow ditch before I realised my mistake. Luckily I had no trouble reversing out and we were on our way again

Stage 3
An hour long service, so Hugh gave Fly a good check over only finding the front wheel bearings needing a little tweak and some play in the rack, but nothing to worry about. We had a look at the results and were 38th and 3rd in Class - the late entry had knocked a wheel off on stage 1, and the beached Astra had got pushed out by spectators but got a stage maximum
This stage was identical to stage 1 except for a short section near the start to avoid a very mucky uphill hairpin. Although it was still drizzling, the stage was drier in places and I felt we were going a lot quicker

Stage 4
Similar to 3, it went well and I remembered which hairpin I'd got wrong although this time there was a BMW wedged in a deeper part of the ditch so we had to go slowly past it, and we had a bit of a moment when I went wide to avoid a big dip on the inside but got into the mucky stuff and nearly put it in the ditch on the outside but still managed 22s quicker than Stage 2

Stage 5
Another hour in service, which seemed a bit long as the event was running behind due to the number of cars off, so Hugh checked the link bars and tyres before we all had another cuppa. We'd gained a few places, now up to 33rd and 3rd in Class, but it was diffcult to tell if this was because we were going quicker or because so many cars had retired and we were over 2 minutes behind 2nd in Class
This stage was 3 & 4 joined together making 12.5 miles in total, but it seemed to go quicker than that despite the tracks being very cut up in places. George was excellent on the notes, only getting confused when she turned 2 pages at once, but was quickly back on it. With a few miles to go we came across a BMW stranded in a ditch, but I couldn't remember if it was in our Class or not so concentrated on not doing anything stupid myself and got to the finish without any problems in a time of 17:54

On the Road Section back to the finish we checked the Entry List and the stranded BMW was in our class, so we moved up to 30th Overall and 2nd in Class

It was a very good day, well organised and they kept everything running despite the numerous incidents (21 cars retired from the moderns)
Well done and thanks to George for reading the notes, she was pleased to get a nice crystal glass award, and thanks to Hugh for servicing

After the awards in a local Rugby Club, I found the van had sunk into the verge where I'd left it, but luckily Tudor Davies and his driver were walking past so they helped us push it out

A rather muddy Fly last night

[Graham]

Re: GavinRs Mk2 Rally Car FLY

great result, great write up i always love reading them :them:

[Retromotorsport]

Re: GavinRs Mk2 Rally Car FLY

Congrats on the 2nd

[exboyracer]

Re: GavinRs Mk2 Rally Car FLY

Well done on keeping your head while all around you were loosing theirs

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Time for an end of season update...


Carver's Traders Road Rally - 17/18th September 2011

Another South West event, only 25 entries this time, George was on the maps and we'd entered as Novices as the classes were based on her experience and not mine
It started from Ralegh's Cross on Exmoor and had a 140 mile route with halfway in Tiverton. We had 45mins to plot the route but only managed to plot 3/4 of it so were hoping we would have some time at halfway to plot the rest. The first half started well, getting past the 2 cars in front early on but we got a bit lost trying to find a white so ended up following them again and then met a local down a narrow road who took a while to reverse out of the way and we lost quite a bit of time

At halfway we plotted the rest of the route and set off into the lanes again. After about 20 miles we had 3 sections defined by a marked map which we'd been given at the start in a sealed envelope - when we opened the envelope at the control, we had 2 copies of the map for section 2 & 3 and no map for section 1
I ran back to the marshal but he didn't have any spare copies so I waited for the next car to open their envelope and had a quick look, trying to memorise the route, ran back and drew it on the map, so we now had the route but not the codeboard or control locations, but we got through it all and only missed one codeboard. The rest of the route worked well and we got back to Ralegh's Cross around 5am for a large cooked breakfast

We spoke to the organisers about our marked map problems, but when the results came out we'd done as well as the other Novices on those sections so it wasn't worth trying to get the sections scrubbed. We ended up 8th Overall and 1st Novice, George was very happy as it was her first class win


Woodbridge Gymkhana - Sunday 13th November 2011

I wasn't sure I'd make this one as it was the same weekend as Rally GB, but the National B event which my friends were doing was on the Friday and Saturday, so I loaded Fly a few days before and headed off to Wales on Thursday as service crew. My friends finished without any problems and I left Builth Showground at 4pm Saturday afternoon, picked up Fly and was at my brother's in Chelmsford for 10pm

I had a set of knobblies on Fly, bought secondhand in January and had already done the 3 Road Rallies, so the rears had about 3mm left and fronts not much more and Woodbridge is often a bit mucky so I thought they'd be ideal. Derek was double driving this time, having sold his 205 a few months ago and was trying some travel sickness pills as he sometimes feels a bit ill when navigating

The tests were quite straightforward with 3 separate ones laid out. The first loop was a bit damp and greasy and I didn't have much grip, but when Derek went out everything had dried nicely and he was only a couple of seconds behind on each one, leaving us 3rd and 7th at the morning break

After a couple of skills tests, the second loop of tests was similar to the first with a few small changes and with the tyres working better I managed to set fastest time on all 3, moving up to 2nd. Derek also gained a place to 6th at lunch

We did another skills test after lunch (both cleaned it) and then on to the 3rd loop which was test 4, 5 and 6 run in the other direction. Derek was navigating well, the pills having the desired affect and he'd written which side of each cone to go on the diagram so just had to call these out. Unfortunately on the final test one direction was wrong and we lost maybe 6s correcting our mistake. Derek had a good run through without any problems

Back in the paddock I chatted to the chap who was leading (in a Civic Type R) and discovered he'd had a similar cock up on the final test and lost about 10s
When the results were published, this was enough to give me 1st Overall by 3s. Derek was very pleased with his best ever result of 7th Overall and picked up 1st in Class


Fly is now resting but not for long as I've already got 2 Road rallies planned, one in January and one in February

[mexicotait]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

great news gav
ive got one rally booked in in jan starting in consett in durham ending in slayley forest

what tyres do you usually run on for road rallys i have some colway gravel tyres and everyone is telling me to go on nobblies
i normally just use road tyres and have no grip at all

any advice?

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Hi,

It depends a lot on the event - if it's mainly tarmac then some decent road tyres such as Yoko 21R's are very popular, but if there's a lot of whites / forest tracks, then worn knobblies are a good choice and work reasonably well on tarmac too (but newish knobblies on tarmac don't as the tread blocks move around too much!)

[mexicotait]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Cheers for that gav
Need some decent road tyres i think
It had pirellis on which were brilliant but didnt last long
Im planning on puttin full knobblies all round with two decent road tyres in the boot
See what happens

Oh and i had a go with the handbrake yesterday after you modded it and its brilliant

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

Bath Festival Road Rally – Sat 4th February 2012

After the cancellation of the Carpetbagger this was our first road event of the year. I hadn’t touched Fly since a 12 car in December but a few hours one evening and she was ready to go. On the Saturday afternoon it started snowing and after hearing from fellow Tavenr members Alan & Denise that it was just as bad where they live near the start of the rally, I fitted my best set of M&S tyres to the rear, picked up George and headed for the start in Frome.

There were 35 entries and we were seeded Car 13 in the Semi-Experts just behind a Saab V4. After signing on we plotted the route for the 3 forest tests and waited for the start just after 9pm. Due to the weather conditions Test 2 was cancelled and Test 3 had to be shortened as the exit road was impassable.

We reached Test 1 in thick snow and were going well until a LWR triangle halfway through where the codeboard was hidden behind a tree and we couldn’t find it (8 other crews had the same problem and 4 more had to reverse back for it), so not a good start. Test 3 went a lot better, a nice flowing forest track with no bad corners so George didn’t bother reading the map and just enjoyed the ride. We came across the stop line quite suddenly over a crest to see the Saab just pulling away, and were 3rd quickest on this one

Back at the start we were given the route for the Night Section and an hour to plot. This wasn’t quite enough as there were a lot of Map Refs, we got all but the last few sections plotted, and restarted just after 11pm. We started well cleaning the first few sections but then caught some slower cars and with a few minor wrong slots in the confusion and worsening driving conditions, we dropped the odd minute here and there.

We ended up following a 205 with a Golf and another 205 close behind, all doing about 25mph along a rather slippery bit of road when the 205 in front got a bit close to the edge, locked up and the camber took him onto the verge and into the hedge! George suggested we stop to make sure they were ok but I had no grip and was worried we’d do the same if I tried to stop. Then at the next junction, there was a loud bang as the clutch cable let go

I waited for the next few cars to go past then pushed Fly out of the way, before getting completely confused about trying to start the engine in gear, thinking the starter had packed up at the same time, but eventually figured out my mistake and we drove slowly to the next control in 1st gear. Then it was a 3 mile make up section which we had to do to remain in the rally, this time I got going in 2nd gear and parked in a layby 100yds from the control, George ran off to get our time (Alan & Denise were running this one), while I made a start changing the cable. I’ve carried a spare cable for the last 20 years but never had to change one on an event, removing the old one and routing the new one in the engine bay and onto the pedal went well, but lying on the ground in the snow trying to get the cable into the clutch fork was a right pain. Eventually with George’s help it was done and we were ready to go again. A quick look at the map and we realised we could cut out a big loop and rejoin at petrol in Wells on our correct time.

By this time of night, the skies had cleared, the moon was out and the temperature had dropped so the roads were now sheet ice in places. The organisers cut out the worst bits and the first section was on the flat with some nice straight roads, it was the quickest section all night and we cleaned it without any trouble, and the next one as well. Then it was onto the lanes around Worthy Farm, a downhill section into a Ford was very icy and we had a run at it to make sure we had enough speed to get up the other side, luckily it wasn’t that deep. Soon after we were looking for an unmarked white, recently added for the Glastonbury Festival, another Tavern crew Will & Bob Rutherford had used it before on an Enduro event so earlier showed us roughly where it was, we thought we had gone past it and were going to turn round when Will and Bob came past so we followed, but at the next entrance they turned round and went back so we did the same and found it the second time. After all this we had dropped 3min, then there was a link section around Shepton Mallet to the final 2 sections heading back towards Frome.

Queuing up for the Time Control, Bob asked if we wanted to go ahead, but they were going very well and I didn’t want to get in their way. The control was slightly uphill which caused problems first for Andrew Lees in his Nova and then Will in their Astra just trying to reach the control (both in Enduro spec cars so no LSD’s). Fly didn’t have any trouble and we left soon after Will, overtaking them at the first junction. Next there was a nice long white, plenty of grip in the mud so I was pushing on and we caught Andrew Lees at the end of it. We followed him for a bit and then came to a downhill square right, Andrew tried to use the verge to slow down but ended up bouncing down the verge and stopped just before a gate at the bottom. We had slightly more control, and got past while he recovered, and only dropped a minute on this section (only 2 cars cleaned it). The final section was probably the worst of the night, bits of snow and black ice, we dropped 3min in 2 miles just trying to keep on the road, I was driving with one hand on the wheel and one on the handbrake so I could try and steer with both ends!

Back at the finish we had breakfast while waiting for the results. As we had visited all the Main Time Controls we were classified as a finisher, 24th and last overall, on the sections we did our times would have put as about 5th, but some of the sections we missed out were Plot & Bash which we usually lose some time on.

We were glad that we continued after changing the cable as it was good experience for both of us, I don’t think I’ve ever done a rally in such bad conditions, and George still hasn’t done that many night events, although we hope to do a few more this year. Many thanks to George for navigating and helping fix Fly!

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Rally Car - FLY

A couple of pics from last weekend, courtesy Andy Manston of M&H Photography