GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

[Retromotorsport]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Great write as always Gavin, and good luck on the Albert

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Fat Albert Stages 31st July 2010

As this event was being run by my motor club, I'd volunteered to help set up the stages, so I arrived early on the Friday, spent a few hours pitching the tents for Rally HQ and Results before heading out on the airfield to drop hundreds of cones, barriers and a few round straw bales at the junctions and chicanes, leaving the final positioning to the Clerk of the Course and his Assistants. It was all pretty much done by late afternoon so I got DVY ready for scrutineering which was passed without any comments. Holly arrived a bit later so we signed on, got all the Stage Diagrams and heading off to a B&B in nearby Trowbridge. There was almost a full entry of 82 cars with 34 in our class!

Stage 1 & 2
There had been some rain overnight but it was dry again by the time we started Stage 1. I'd bought 4 new tyres for the event from Steve Harkness but unfortunately Hankook were out of stock of the mediums so we were running hard all round. We had a good first stage setting 12th quickest time but I didn't feel she was turning in that well, so back in service I had a quick squint at the tracking. It looked to be towing out slightly so I tweaked one side and we were ready for Stage 2.
This was a lot quicker, improving by 27s, but everyone else went even quicker so we dropped back a bit. Going through the nadgery bit for the second time, we were waved down by some marshals who were trying to extricate the Aston Martin from some bushes where he'd missed a corner

Stage 3 & 4
A minor change to the stage layout with a loop down an old runway to a hairpin left and back up again. Coming into this corner the first time I turned in as usual, there was an almighty bang and we were up on 2 wheels, I could see Holly's head move sideways and there was a straw bale rolling along side us. I assumed I'd cut the bale a bit tight which had flicked us onto 2 wheels and the bang I heard was Holly's helmet hitting the roll cage
I asked if she was ok and she said just to get on with it so I did and a couple of corners later an Impreza WRC dived up the inside into a chicane, nearly went straight on through it before leaving us behind. The rest of the stage passed without incident
Back in service Holly went off to find the Competitor Liaison Officer to complain about the Impreza, while I borrowed Hugh and Andy (who were servicing for another Tavern crew) to help sort out the damage - the rear arch was badly dented along with the rear quarter but the wheel, suspension and axle were fine, so I left them to it and went to see how Holly was getting on
After some confusion on my part, Holly explained that the almighty bang had been the Impreza hitting us at the hairpin and not me hitting a bale, and this was why we had a large dent in the side. There wasn't much the organisers could do as none of the marshals had reported the incident, but they did everything they could within the rules and had a word with the crew of the Impreza before the next stage, which was more than the Impreza crew did, never even coming over to us to check if we were ok
Anyway, Hugh and Andy made the arch look more like an arch again and secured it with a couple of brackets, so we went out for Stage 4. This went smoothly, on our second lap we were catching a different Impreza in the nadgery bit when we were both slowed by the marshals again as a Mk2 had tried to take a 45 right flat out and gone off into some other bushes on the outside and didn't make it out again. Soon after the Impreza pulled over to let us past and we set a time slightly quicker than Stage 4.
After all this we were about 16th overall and 3rd in class, 11s behind 2nd in class

Stage 5 & 6
Another slight change to the layout, this time a chicane on a junction was switched to be a hairpin so we used a different bit of the airfield. Shortly before this new corner, we were overtaken by the Stojanov's in the ex-Peter Lloyd Subaru S12 WRC, but when they got to the junction, they drove it as a chicane, ending up in a pile of cones, so we carried on past and didn't see them again
We had a very good run through and it went even better on Stage 6 and we moved up to 2nd in class, although a long way off 1st in class

Stage 7 & 8
After a brief lunch break, the 4 afternoon stages ran in the opposite direction. On the first one we caught up a BMW 325 coming into a hairpin, who spun it on the way out and we ended up facing each other, Holly shouted to go past on the grass so I did while he sorted himself out
Stage 8 was good as well, we were overtaken by the Mk1 Escort of Adrian Brown and followed him for a bit, gaining slightly under braking but getting left on the straights, his 2.5 JRE Vauxhall engine giving a lot more power than my Cossie. Out of the hairpin at "Dingly Dell" there's a bump on a left hander before a sqaare right back on to the perimeter track. I thought I'd try a different line cutting the grass a lot, but it didn't go well, ending up with 2 wheels on the grass the other side, nearly hitting a fence before getting it back together, but no harm done in the end
After these we were 11th overall and 2nd in class

Stage 9 & 10
The last 2 of the day, just had to make sure we didn't do anything stupid, Stage 9 went well, nice and tidy everywhere
Stage 10 we were overtaken by the Impreza WRC of the Furzelands (not the people who hit us earlier) and then a bit later caught up the Rotary powered Mk2 of Steve Hopewell who had been having a gentle first lap to try and cool the engine, but got going again for the second lap and even though we were slightly quicker, we were never close enough to be held up.
Coming out of the nadgery bit for the last time the rear end was a bit twitchy, so I took it gently down to "Dingly Dell" hairpin, thinking we might have a rear puncture, but we got round ok and through the finish
Back in service, no punctures but we found a broken top link bar bolt. Apart from this, DVY ran well all day, we finished on the same tyres we started on and just had to add petrol during the day

Holly checked the results and we were very pleased to finish 10th overall and 2nd in class
Many thanks to Holly for sitting in with me again and doing a good job reading the diagrams, despite having a stiff neck after our incident. Also to Tavern Motor Club for a very slick event which ran like clockwork all day with no hold ups

Tavern member Jim Munden was 1st in class, just over 3 minutes ahead of us, in a very similar spec Mk2 to DVY, but he's a bit more talented than I am, and finished 3rd overall

The event was one by the Impreza WRC who had hit us with Adrian Brown just 31s behind in 2nd

I did the in car every other stage, so wasn't recording the one we got hit on

SS2

SS4

SS6

SS8

SS10

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

A few pics taken when I got home - the black mark is from the Impreza's front tyre




Back in the workshop, removed the old arch and side window, hammered it as straight as I could and pulled the quarter panel out




With the window out I could that the seam had split so this had a few spots of weld


Trial fitted the new arch - luckily I had a spare one for this corner




Loads of filler


After a lot of sanding and about 50 rivets the new arch was on today




Some more sanding and 3 coats of primer, top coats will go on tomorrow

[360phil]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

2nd in class from over 30 cars was a superb result Gavin

Your incident with the Imprezza is really annoying - you can bet that the driver isn't doing the repairs himself, and really ignorant not to come over and apologise to you both.

Keevil is a great venue, and I'm sure we'll be making the long journey from Manchester again next year. Tavern did a really good job.

I meant to come over and say hello, but I was kept busy in between stages!!

[Tazman]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

we finished on the same tyres we started on and just had to add petrol during the day

My kind of rallying nice Gavin

[cossie matt]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Well done Gav Great result. Shame about the damage but glad it didn't effect your performance.

Cheers

Matt

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

All finished and ready for tomorrow...

Paint


More paint


Arch guard


Stickers and mudflap and repainted the light guard

[wooks]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Superb result well done, we were car 30, a red 205 with a yellow sun strip, we had never done the event before and didnt have a clue where we were going, then the front wishbone bushes wiped out, so game over....,will be back next year to try and make up for an awful account of ourselves this year lol

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Loton Park 14-15th August 2010

Just a brief report this time...

Saturday was damp first thing, 2nd practice was dry (60.80s) as was the 1st Timed Run (59.03s) but we had a heavy shower while lining up for the 2nd Timed Run
Karl's 1st Run was about 0.3s ahead of me so he won the class from myself and Steve Bailey's Mk1 which was now back to Pinto power while he waits for the Dry Sump Pump manufacturer to pay for his Cosworth rebuild - the previous outing's oil pump failure had left it needing a new crank and rods

Sunday was dry and warm all day although 1st Practice was a bit iffy after some overnight rain
2nd Practice I had a very good run up the hill, stopping the clocks on 58.41s, very, very close to my PB of 58.37s set last August
1st Timed Run I tried a bit too hard and could only manage 58.94s, which left me 3rd behind Karl on 57.80s and Tony Hart on 58.31s in his freshly reshelled Renault 5 Turbo after an incident at 3 Sisters last year
2nd Timed Run I decided to take a gamble and borrowed Karl's slightly harder compound 10" wide rear slicks that he only uses for practice to see if it would keep the rear under control. They only just fitted under the arches despite my very narrow Atlas (Karl has Monte Carlo arches which are a lot wider) but it was good enough for one run
I was a bit slower off the line and a bit nervous round to Triangle not being sure what the handling would be like, but she came out of Triangle very well (the tyres up to temperature now) and going out of Keepers I could get the power down earlier and by the time I reached the crest at the top of Cedar Straight the shift light was on in 4th which I'd never seen before, and a speed trap which was set up there showed 87mph (Saturday's best was 84mph) and I crossed the line in 58.55s, still in 3rd place

I wasn't too worried about being 3rd as doing 3 58s runs was the best day I'd had all year, and the experiment with the wider slicks was very interesting. At the moment I'm not sure whether I'll be hillclimbing next year as I'd like to do more rallies, but if I do then I'll be trying 9" slicks all round

Two weeks earlier, there had been another National B meeting which I couldn't go to because I was doing the Fat Albert. Karl was there though and did a 57.74s on the Saturday which was only 0.04s off the Mod Prod Class Record held by Mark Waldron in a Turbocharged Lotus Elise 1.4 back in October 2001
But then on the Sunday, Ralph Pinder was out in his 300hp Mi16 engined Peugeot 205, sporting bigger arches and brand new 10" slicks all round, and he obliterated the record with a time of 57.19s

So back to rallies, and after a few days of fettling Dvy, she's ready for the Mewla Rally over the Epynt Ranges this Sunday

[BDA_IT]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Saw that you were out on the Mewla! Looks like you had a good day! Maybe next year we will attack the tarmac raods of Epynt, we have been over the ranges in the forest and that is some of the best stages in the UK and i loved it! Was it hairy in the Wet? can you just buy notes and check them on the wrecky or do you have to make your own?

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Eventsigns Mewla Rally (Epynt) - Sunday 29th August

After a few single venue events over the summer and not having the budget for a 2nd trip to Ireland this year I was looking for a bigger event to do and the Mewla came up at the right time

I'd done 3 events over Epynt in '96 & '97 in a GpN RS2000 but it struggled a bit on the uphill sections so I was looking forward to having a go in DVY. Holly was codriving again, her first time on notes for 4 years so we booked in for the recce the day before and bought some notes from Brian Patterson

We did the recce in the service van and soon got left behind by the rest of the convoy we were in but by mid afternoon the notes were all checked and we headed back to the Royal Welsh Showground for scrutineering which was passed without any problems

Saturday had been nice and sunny, but Sunday dawned overcast and it was drizzling steadily. Carrie and Guy were servicing and they arrived early to take the van up to the service area on the ranges. DVY was sitting on slicks and as we left the showground on the first road section the weather got worse and worse turning into heavy rain. This road section took us through service and we worked out we had 8 minutes to change to the new Dunlop X22 wets Once I'd remembered which one went where it all went smoothly and we got through the forest to Stage 1 with a few minutes to spare

Stage 1 - 8.75 miles - 10:46
This one started just up from Tirabad on the yellow road, went through the German Village, then back across to the roads on the West of the ranges before finishing back on the Yellow a little bit up from Dixies. We started off well, having plenty of grip from the tyres with Holly calling the notes well and after about 6 miles we overtook Brian Davies' Corolla (we found out later he was taken ill) and then with about a mile to go we were caught by the Corolla of Gareth 'Shonky' Jones (a very successful Road Rally competitor) who had started 30s behind us. Our time put us 60th out of the 100 cars which had started the event

Stage 2 - 9.30 miles - 11:51
After a 1/2 mile road section it was straight into Stage 2 which used the very twisty Burmah Road before heading East onto the more open sections of the ranges. No problems on this one either, the heated screen was working well but I had to back off a couple of times as it was raining so hard the wipers couldn't keep up
Back in service we checked everything and topped up with petrol before heading back through the forest to Stage 3

Stage 3 - 19.90 miles - 21:42
This was Stage 1 and Stage 2 with the road section in between run competitively and at just under 20 miles was easily the longest stage I'd done for many years. There was a long delay at the start as someone had gone off in Stage 1 about 10 cars after us causing the stage to be stopped and the ambulance was sent in as the codriver was unconscious (the crew are both ok now). Holly wandered up to get the arrival time while I chatted to Shonky and a few of the other drivers. Everything got under way again and we could see the first few cars going into the first corner with clouds of spray coming off them
We started this one behind the Road Rally spec Mk1 Escort of Phil Evans and after about 15 miles he was in sight although it was another couple of miles before I caught him and he let us past. Going up the next straight the intermittent misfire returned and he caught us up again and followed us over the finish, but our time was good enough to be 44th quickest
I was really enjoying it by now and would have happily done another 20 miles without a break
Back to service again, Holly and I fitted a new set of plugs while Guy checked all the suspension and Carrie cut some heat shield which we fitted round the coil in case that was getting too hot

Stage 4 - 13.35 miles - 14:13
This was a shortened version of Stage 3 with a couple of loops missed out. The heavy rain had eased now but the roads were still very wet and this time we were caught by the Mk1 who had finally sorted out his throttle linkage problems. Watching him from behind was very interesting, he was going into the corners a lot faster than I dared, getting the front turned in nicely and just drifting the back round, and flicking it through the chicanes in a similar manner
The misfire still happened a couple of times but wasn't slowing us down that much so I didn't bother trying anything else in service, we just checked everything again and had some lunch

Stage 5 - 11.25 miles - 11:33
Going in the reverse direction now from East to West but headed up from fourways to finish just after the German village. In service it was still overcast so I hadn't thought about changing the tyres, the X22's still having loads of life left, but the roads were now drying quickly and about 8 miles into the stage everything got a bit twitchy as they started to overheat so I backed off slightly. Coming down the slope out of the German Village which had been made slippery by people cutting the corner in the other direction there was a BMW buried in the trees with only his boot showing so I was very careful round here

Stage 6 - 4.1 miles - 4:49
A short road section took us to Stage 6 which looped back onto the Burmah Road before finishing on a little used section near to Llandeilo'r Fan. The tyres had cooled enough by now so we had plenty of grip all the way through. Near the finish there was a big jump into a bus stop chicane, we hardly got off the ground, but a few others took the jump flat out and went straight through the chicane and got a minute penalty - there's a good video of this on Youtube
Holly was really enjoying herself now as well, getting used to how far ahead she needed to be on the notes and we were going a lot quicker now that the sun was out
Back through the forest to the last service which was a short one and we fitted the slicks for the last loop

Stage 7 - 11.1 miles - 11:16
A repeat of Stage 5 and we were only 17s quicker on the slicks which shows how much grip the softer wets had before they got too hot. Strangely the misfire had gone completely now so I'm not sure it is heat related

Stage 8 - 4.1 miles - 4:39
A repeat of Stage 6 and a good one to finish with, everything went well, I just need a bit more commitment over some of the crests

Then the final drive back to the finish at the showground and to get the results

We finished 38th overall and 11th in class (out of 21), had a very enjoyable day and I'm sure we'll go back to Epynt next year

Many thanks to Carrie and Guy for their work in service and to Holly for doing a great job on the notes

Plenty of pics to follow, but I didn't bother with the in car as you need special permission and we had enough to worry about without it

[bmw02rally]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Gavin,
I haven't posted before as I just like to read mostly but I really enjoy your detailed event reports. I especially liked this last one as I now live on the Gold Coast in Australia and Epynt rallying is about the only thing I miss of the UK!! Okay maybe Brains Bitter and Chips and Curry Sauce! But writing this whilst sipping a cold beer next to my pool, I don't miss it that much!

I'm in the middle of building a Mk2 myself so I will be back on the stages soon but there's nothing like Epynt over here so keep it up and keep them reports coming as I'm sure there's more people than just me that benefit.....

Regards
Mark J

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Thanks for your comments

And now for some pics

4 from Ben Jones Photography, the first 3 on the Burmah Road, probably Stage 3 and the 4th entering the German Village section in the afternoon








2 from Jamie Vaughan on one of the many LWR triangles used to slow everyone down




1 from Mike Jones at the downhill haripin just north of Dixies, probably on Stage 1


One of the benefits of doing an event with spectators nowadays is a lot of them are on Facebook and you just put up your car no and pictures appear

Next event is Woodbridge at the end of September but I'll be on the Tavern Motor Club stand at Rallyday the weekend before

[BDA_IT]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Hopefully ill be up at Rally Day at quarry corner with our T Shirt Stall come up and see us! If im not there dad will be and he will sort you out a nice Mk2 Escort T shirt!!

[alladdin]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

One of the benefits of doing an event with spectators nowadays is a lot of them are on Facebook and you just put up your car no and pictures appear

Gavin, has DVY always been this colour scheme ?
i copied a scheme years ago onto my mk2 at the time (same patern but just red yel blu) and its bugging me that it might have been your car i copied all them years ago. i will have to dig thro some old pics but i fear ive thrown a lot