GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Middlewick Stages - Sunday 8th May 2011

1st Overall - Gavin Rogers / Holly Bailey - Mk2 Escort

[JonSegger]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Middlewick Stages - Sunday 8th May 2011

1st Overall - Gavin Rogers / Holly Bailey - Mk2 Escort

Fantastic result Gavin! Well done...!

[team_zi]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Congratulations on the win.

[cossie matt]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Superb Result Gavin and Holly!!!!

Well done indeed mate, come and do Cearwent Midsummer with me on 26th June

[dottydogmk1]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Just got to page 36 of this weeks Motoring News only to be confronted with a picture of DVY on one wheel - I read the story and discovered that you won! Well done mate and look forward to a re match sometime. All the best, Steve.

[david_white]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Superb, well done fella

[tellyman]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Flying up on epynt today well done

[azz259]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

waiting for the report and in-car Gavin,c'mon ha ha

[Tazman]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Middlewick Stages - Sunday 8th May 2011

1st Overall - Gavin Rogers / Holly Bailey - Mk2 Escort

Nice one Gavin

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Thanks for all the comments, looks like I have some catching up to do

First, some in car from Down Ampney

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

Middlewick Stages - Woodbridge - Sunday 8th May 2011

Just a short report...

I’d done this event last year and had a good time so decided to go back this year. Holly Bailey was codriving and we met up the night before for Scrutineering and had a look at the Stage maps, which were 99% identical to last year
We were seeded Car 12 out of 50 starters, and the forecast was for a lovely sunny day

Stage 1 & 2
Having competed at Down Ampney the week before I was on the ball from the start, Holly couldn’t believe how much faster the car was with the fuel injection, and after Stage 1 she had a quick walk round the paddock to see how our time compared with everyone else, only managing to find Richard Upton, last year’s winner in a 2.4 Sierra Cosworth, 8s quicker, everyone else being at least 8s behind
Stage 2 went even better, 16s quicker, still couldn’t catch the Sierra but now comfortably in 2nd, 15s ahead of David Mann’s N14 Impreza who was having a tarmac shakedown before the Jim Clark and 17s ahead of Ross Daniels’ older Impreza

Stage 3 & 4
It was getting warm by now and the 7.5 mile stages were quite twisty but I thought we could get through these 2 stages on the soft / medium set of tyres. Our times were consistent, not making an impression on the Sierra but still gaining a few seconds from the 2 Imprezas. By the end of Stage 4, the front tyres had gone off and the engine was getting a bit too hot, water temp 120 and oil about 130 (!), but there was not much we could do except to let it cool down, did the usual checks and added quite a bit of water

Stage 5 & 6
With the stages reversed and the medium / hard tyres fitted we had a good run through Stage 5 and nearing the finish caught and passed the Sierra who was putting out clouds of smoke, his turbo having succumbed to the heat. Back in the paddock, more water for the radiator and Holly asked if I realised what catching the Sierra meant, I said I didn’t want to think about it, just wanted to concentrate of the next stage!
Stage 6 was good and even though the 2 Imprezas were a second or 2 quicker, we were still around 20s ahead with 2 to go. At this point David Mann decided he had done enough testing and went home, leaving Ross Daniels in 2nd and promoting Royston Carey’s 2litre Clio into 3rd

Stage 7 & 8
Another few litres of water and I topped up the oil, Holly was a bit concerned by how much we were using but there were no leaks, the water seemed to be coming from the radiator cap but the oil was everywhere! Stage 7 was going well but we hit a big pothole on the second lap and when we got back to the paddock discovered 2 bent rims on Holly’s side so quickly changed them – Aron Rayner followed us through the same hole in his Citroen AX and broke his suspension so it could have been worse. Ross Daniels had problems though when the turbo pipe came off near the end and he lost 17s to us, so we were 39s up with one to go. A few people came over and told me to keep it on the island and we’d have the win, I was just praying the engine would hold out for one more!
Stage 8, another 7.5 miles and after 2 miles the car was starting to fill up with smoke, but she was still going like a train and we finished without any problems and set another fastest stage time. Ross Daniels turbo pipe had come off again so he cruised to the finish losing 6min

So with a bit of luck on the way we’d made it, 1st Overall, 1m 28s ahead of Royston’s Clio in 2nd, with Jody Tilburn’s Mk2 Escort another 30s behind in 3rd, not often you get 3 Class C cars at the front!
I could not believe we had won it, Holly was very pleased, the last time I won a rally outright was the Fat Albert in 1999…

[Graham]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

FANTASTIC MATE WELL DONE

[Dan]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

well done Gav fantastic result

[GavinR]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

So after all the excitement, I left DVY in the shed and concentrated on building the Scimitar, hoping that the oil and water loss was due to the heat and nothing more serious, surely if the head gasket had gone I would have lost power

My next planned event was the "Mini Epynt" on 5th June so a couple of weeks before that I drained the oil and water only to find the oil was milky. With no time to investigate further as I was getting Fly ready for an event on 29th May, I refilled with fresh oil and water and left her. It was the Tuesday before Epynt when I had another look, ran the engine for 10 minutes, drained the oil and again it was milky...

So Wednesday I dug out the compression tester, removed all the plugs, put it in Cylinder no 1, span her over and water shot out of no 2 Cylinder and by midnight I had removed the head and found a tiny mark on the head gasket between no 2 and the water jacket. It seems odd that it would sit there and idle perfectly, but fill up with water when not running

Anyway, a few frantic phone calls Thursday morning, first to HT to see what head gasket I needed (a std sierra cossie one as the block is ringed), then to Interpro in Thornbury to see if they could get me one for the Friday which proved difficult, and finally I found Woodford Garage on eBay who said they had 6 in stock. A quick call to explain the situation and they posted one out Special Delivery

So this left me with Friday afternoon to sort out fitting the head gasket as I'd promised some friends I would service for them on the Severn Valley rally on the Sat before doing my rally on the Sunday. I started at 3:30pm and it was all going well until I went to put the rocker cover on and dropped a bolt which bounced into no 3 cylinder should have put the plugs in sooner

I nearly gave up at that point, but what goes in must come out so I borrowed a magnet on a stick (too big to fit through the plug hole) and then a very strong magnet to magnetise a screwdriver which I then bent to reach the corners of the piston. 45 min later the bolt was out

Hugh came over at 7:30 as he was servicing both days, just in time to see me start her up, started first time and was idling smoothly, no pressure in the rad or the dry sump tank so we were good to go and made it to the B & B near Builth at 10:30pm

[Group4_Mark2]

Re: GavinR's Mk2 Stage Car - DVY

It is no wonder that you were slow updating the thread. You were too busy fixing cars, servicing and rallying.

Congratualtion on the win, well done, fantastic job.