..........WE ARE NOT MEETING AT THE CARPENTERS TAVERN - SEE BELOW FOR DETAILS..................
Looks like a snowy one.
We shall be relying on our ice note crews (aka the Speech House marshal team) for information on the stages.
Can you imagine the coach ride to school the kids had today as Jim practises for Saturday
I hate it, Denise hates it - bl**dy snow.
Bring on the hard fast Wyedean stages.
I don't have the right tyres and the car is far too cammy for the conditions.
Tippy toeing around on snow and ice all day does not give me my value for money rallying that I was looking for this year.
Not happy
You could pull the entry if you know you're not going to enjoy it rather than risk damaging the car as well.
Better to loose just the entry fee than possibly incur extra expense for repairs on top
Trouble is, the conditions might not be too bad on the day and then you would be feeling sick!
Looking like teh snow should be clearing but it could be icy ... Thene again there will of been 100 crews through before you to break it up... I know that's what my mate in his Evo 6 - seeded 87 - is relying on !
At the moment the event is on. Forest inspection tonight. FOD tarmac roads clear. Final decision will be notified at 10:00 tomorrow.
If it is on we are doing it.
Watch your mirrors Kit and Tim
Just back from Speech house finish. Saw Jim, Kit and Alan through finish but not in results. Any news . If Tim has that much time on is hands to beep the horn then maybe he wasn't reading the notes properly but thanks anyway. Julian Wilkes really flying through our stage but the rest of the 1400 were non committed, Yes stage was ice in places but i think i could have written the finish times on the time cards as they passed the flying finish.
Cheeky bugger!
Good to see you waving us on
We were 44th & 11th 2wd, Alan & Denise were 61st and Jim & John were 64th (with no notes and after spending a few minutes on a log pile).
It was awesome out there today, absolutely loved it so did Kit, although he wanted a bit more snow to help set the car up for the corners. It went from no grip, to grip back to no grip all the time. Really kept Kit on his toes, a pleasure to sit beside.
Thank to my ice note crew (Nick) for the report on conditions in Serridge.
Well done to all three crews making the finish.I was in Sallowvallets between j2 and 3 and it was hard packed ice all day even after 140 odd cars.By chance i met Lee and Shaun Harding then went to Chepstow Park on the famous left over crest Jim was well sideways over it.Walking back to the car there were loads of tracks where cars had run wide and overshot corners so to get to the end was a result in itself.
Well done to you all. It did look a very unperdictable surface. i'm off to fight the bush fires in sydney and drive the Bathurst 1000 circuit see you when i get back
Well we all finished.
We actuially enjoyed it a lot more than we thought we would and were glad that we did not pull our entry and went to all the effort on Friday just to get to scrutineering.
Unfortunately we weren't very quick. 62nd overall and 5th in class. Our best stage was SS1, 63rd overall. Our best stage would have been SS5 Chepstow Park but we had a glitch in our ignition pack when I turned on electric screen demister. I guess there must have put a power surge through the processor. Any way we spluttered to a stop and it wouldn't start. I turned the ingnition pack off and on again and it fired up again as was OK from then on. Lost 20-30 seconds. Without that we would have been about 52nd overall on that stage and about the same time as Kit and Tim on what was the slippiest stage of the day.
The only other loss of time was the completely unexplained 1:03 slower we were on the second running of Serridge. I really don't know what happened. It must have been a subconcious desire to get it to the end. We did get a few shouts fron Denise as we nearly got sucked up a bank on the stage on a long quick straight.
Driving the 306 on that surface really shows up the faults the car has. Running 15" wheels means that I can't get a narrow enough tyre. Jim was on 165s all day, we were on 185s. The cammy engine meant that it would be pulling nicely on the slippy stuff than it would suddenly come on cam at 5100 rpm and we had another instant 30bhp and the car was sideways. It was impossible to keep the engine either on of off cam.
Even so great fun and well done to all the Tavern competitors, service crews and marshalls
I've done snow twice now so let's have a dry smooth Wyedean next year so we enjoy some off the fastest stages of the year.
First time speccying on the Wyedean ... usually Marshalling etc... We watched most of the field through Serridge 1&2 and 20 or so cars through the FF on Speech House and went to Service to see the tavern Crews and my mate in his Evo. It was good the roads were clear on the rally route, in the morning I took the wrong turn in Lydney (thought I knew where I was going rather than let Steve check the map!) and ended up going through Bream etc the roads there were very slippery watching a LR90 with a builders trailer on the back swinging away like a pendulum.
Any way well done to all the tavren Crews, to finish was an achievement in it'elf, must admit having watch though I'm starting to get the urge to visit the Forests myself !
Video put together by Wayne Goldring of www.mc-video.co.uk for my local newspapers website.
---The-Fat-Albert Stages---28 October 2012...........