GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

[lee 1]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

That last pic is so

[mervhill]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Excellent story Gav! I hope you told that Dick Mauger to erm, 'go forth and multiply'?

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Excellent story Gav! I hope you told that Dick Mauger to erm, 'go forth and multiply'?

No, I was busy with DVY, but Carrie gave him a piece of her mind

[Tazman]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

One time at Longcross we were held up by Dick Mauger's Escort Cosworth, eventually diving up the inside into a "Bus Stop" chicane only to be cut up with Dick ending up spinning into the chicane whilst we carried on - he came over in service to tell us not to do something that stupid again and that we'd have to go home now as DVY was so bent, and claimed he didn't see us, but the service crew (normally David and Richard who hardly missed an event with DVY ) were already unbolting the front wing and hammering it back into shape and we made it out to the next stage without too much trouble

Those were the days I remember that event well
I'll see if I can find some of my pictures of that event so folks can spot the damage

[Tazman]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

That last pic is so

I think Gavin has one somewhere where you can clearly see one of those big foot road cones (stood upright) underneather the DVY

[Dave]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Excellent thread as always Gavin.
I deliberately don't read your threads until I have enough time to read them properly and try to take it all in. Top quality stuff.

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

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


Next was Wethersfield Stages on August Bank Holiday, in glorious sunshine, we spent all day swapping times with Chris Rees in his Escort Cosworth, with Royston Carey's Clio never far behind. Going into the last stage we were leading by a couple of seconds, and everything was looking good until we entered the bomb dump for the last time and the bck end disappeared for no apparent reason, but down the next straight I realised we had a rear puncture and with 2 miles to go we dropped 10s handing Chris Rees his first ever Stage Rally win and letting Royston through into 2nd with us finishing 3rd / 2nd

Then the Bomb-A-Long at Wroughton and our worst result for a few years when the fan belt flew off on Stage 4, we had to come in a lap early and take a maximum, finishing 27th overall / 14th in class

We went down to Avon Park to marshal (you had to marshal a round of the ACSMC so we always picked the furthest one away) and had an interesting spot at a chicane made from oil drums. A few people moved them slightly and then the Slater brothers came along far too quick in their Cossie Turbo G4 Escort, middled a barrel and ended up with it wedged on top. They got out, thinking their rally was over, but I reckoned we could get the barrel out, so 4 of us lifted one side of the car while Carrie dragged the barrel out and sent them on their way

The final event of the year was Longcross in December where it was very icy so we cruised round for a finish and got 8th / 6th, but this was enough to secure the ACSMC, LCAMC and AEMC championships again

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

I think Gavin has one somewhere where you can clearly see one of those big foot road cones (stood upright) underneather the DVY

That's hanging up on my wall, but the only copy I have is so large it won't fit in the scanner

[Tazman]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

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

I remember that one well, Richard and I managed to get out of service and spectate one stage. I think we got to a point where you had to do a left right round a triangle of grass except the route wasn't properly defined and Royston decided to turn his Clio into a very fast lawn mower

Next stage the marshals had defined the route better

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

I remember that one well, Richard and I managed to get out of service and spectate one stage. I think we got to a point where you had to do a left right round a triangle of grass except the route wasn't properly defined and Royston decided to turn his Clio into a very fast lawn mower

Next stage the marshals had defined the route better

I think he broke something doing that and got a couple of maximums before he'd sorted it out

Another good memory of Longcross was from the summer of 98 when one event used the steeper truck slope going down, which I think had a gradient of 1 in 3 instead of the usual 1 in 4

1st lap of the stage we were very cautious and it didn't seem much steeper than normal so the 2nd lap I kept my foot down.....

















Carrie and I had time to look at each other in mid air, and decide that it might not have been the best idea I'd ever had, before we landed

No harm done, just some scrape marks on the front spoiler and sumpguard, and we had to change the roller tops for the next event

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

2000

We decided to have a more relaxing year in 2000, just picking some of the more enjoyable events and we wanted to take DVY out on an Irish event

In the Mk5 RS2000 I'd done West Cork, Ravens Rock and Wexford a couple of times and found West Cork in March the most enjoyable so we put an entry in

Over the winter the engine had been back to HT as usual and this time we tried some wilder cams to get a bit more power and increased the rev limit to 8.5k

We entered Snetterton as a shake down and to see if we could win again but with 2 6R4's and 3 Escort Cosworth's behind us it was going to be difficult

After 4 stages we were 6th, 40s behind John Indri's 6R4, then on Stage 5 things got worse when the fan belt flew off so we came in a lap early

In service we could see that the alternator mount bushes were shot so when we tensioned the fan belt it twisted the alternator makingn the fan belt come off. Whilst John and Diane asked round the paddock for very long bolt or some large washers, we had to start Stage 6 otherwise we'd be out of the event

So off the start, fan belt comes off, down the pit straight and back into service. This time we wedged enough wshers in the rubber bushes to make them solid and the last 4 stages passed without further incident, we eventually finished 36th overall, 16th in class

After a few phone calls on the Monday, a better alternator arrived from Gareth WWRS on the Tuesday, just in time to be fitted before we left for Cork Wednesday afternoon

The last time I'd been to Ireland in a Mk2 was '94 and '95 when I found the usual tarmac set up didn't work very well on the bumpy Irish lanes with the car being unstable over 90mph so this time I put the 190lb rear springs on the front and some 140lb on the back and raised the suspension all round, but stayed with the tarmac Bilsteins all round

Seeded 54 out of 150 cars we set off on 18 stages all about 10 miles each, we had a very good event with only a couple of minor problems - the rear suspension would lower itself between services and one link rod bolt snapped but this was quickly sorted by Richard in service

Another stage we were flagged down by an inexperienced marshall who said the stage was blocked as the car in front had had a big accident, so we waited there but when the car behind went past without stopping we carried on to find a badly bent Mk2 just off the road with the crew standing beside it looking fit and healthy

After the 2 days we were very happy to finish 25th overall and 6th in class (1651 - 2050cc 16v class) and DVY handled the bumps perfectly, we even hit the rev limiter in 5th a couple of times (about 125mph)

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

2000 Part 2

After West Cork, we had a new 4-1 exhaust manifold made by Specialised Exhausts to make the most of the new cams, then back to Sanspeed's rollers to get everything running perfectly before the usual trip to Millbrook in May

Seeded car 16 again, we were looking forward to another blast round the hill circuit, but by the end of Stage 2 the baulk rings were going in the gearbox which was strange as it had new ones fitted the week before (I used to get 6 or 7 events after fitting new ones before the next lot went in), but the bell housing was quick release and we had the spare gearbox fitted in 35min in service thanks to Richard and David

The spare gearbox was an identical freshly rebuilt 5 speed Quaife Pro so we were back up to speed on Stage 3, but on Stage 4 the baulk rings in this one started to break up as well which left us with a bit of a problem going into the lunch break

Luckily Jim Morris came over to see if he could help (he was servicing for another crew in a Mk2 and we'd known him for many years) and offered us their spare gearbox another 5 speed Quaife Pro, so this was fitted over lunch

So being a bit more careful changing gear this time we set out on the afternoon stages and completed them without any more problems, finishing 13th Overall and 2nd in Class behind Royston's Clio. After the finish we removed the loan gearbox and gave it back to Jim before pushing DVY onto the trailer

I'm not sure if it was the slightly higher rev limit we were running or just the nature of the venue or the way I just stuff it in gear as quick as I can, but I'd had enough of breaking synchros. Having talking to other people previously about the pro's and con's of steel baulk rings I didn't fancy that route, so the next morning I phoned Gareth at WWRS to ask him to order a Quaife 5 speed Sequential Dogbox and to offer him my 2 Quaife Pros in part ex (fitted with more new baulk rings) and a deal was struck

In early August we travelled to Wales to collect the new gearbox and visit WWRS for the first time. Gareth was as eager to see the gearbox as we were as Quaife had only started selling them a few months earlier - DVY was one of the first cars in the country to be fitted with one

We'd arranged with Gareth to sleep on his floor and that night we all went out to spectate on the Valley Services Road Rally just up the road, our first taste of proper Welsh Road Rallying, and couldn't believe how quick the top crews were, or the number of spectators watching at 1am in the morning

Back home in Essex I took the gearbox to Roger Ray, a friend from the local motor club who runs an Electronics company to see if he could make me a gear indicator cheaper than Quaife could

I entered a Sprint at Wethersfield to get used to the new box and at 4 miles long it was a very useful day out, even though I lost count a couple of times which gear I was in it felt a lot quicker changing gear

By October the gear indicator was ready and I entered an event at Longcross, not with Carrie this time, but with Peter Rayner's 16 year old son Aron on his first ever rally - we'd known Peter and his family through the motor club for a few years and I often used to pick up Aron if I was out "testing" in DVY so he was quite comfortable in the car

I think Peter and Carrie (service crew for the day) were more nervous than us when we went out on the first stage, but everything ran very well, apart from losing a couple of seconds on one stage when a strange vibratin came from the exhaust (traced to the bell housing cover plate dropping onto the sumpguard), Aron called all the chicanes and splits well and we finished 3rd overall, 2nd in class, 7s behind Paul King's freshly built Mk2

In November 2000 we sold up in Essex and moved to West Wales - after years of successful rallying on secondhand Michelin slicks (£20 each at the most), the MSA decided to ban them for 2001 (only option then were Dunlops at £110 each) so we wanted to do some more Irish events in DVY and get out on some proper Road Rallies in FLY

[4drmatt]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

just re-read the whole lot.

such a great read

[Dan]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

next please

[Retromotorsport]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Essex, thought you was a herts lad

ohh and next please