Having
been working on a ship for a week, Elise and I were very excited to be dry-side
and heading up North for the Ilkley Jubilee. However, from Plymouth this meant
a seven-hour drive, meeting the TR4 at the M5 Services and a lot of I-spy!
Despite
towing the trailer we made good time and even got a chance to check into our
hotel in Harrogate before making our way over to Scruitineering and signing on.
With our early arrival we decided to complete the measured distance first to
calibrate our trip, this quickly turned into a bad decision as we got stuck in
terrible traffic halfway around, eventually making it back to the start with
us, and the car, a little bit grumpy! We only did the distance once but the
trip seemed to be spot on so we headed over to the garage where they held
Scruitineering and by this time a good crowd of classic cars and their
competitors had gathered, so we joined the queue and caught up with crews known to us and met some new faces
too.
Once
the car had successfully passed it’s checks, signing on was very quick and we
returned to our hotel to begin colour coding and plotting the route. It didn’t
take too long to complete, as the road book was in the form of Tulip Diagrams
and four of the six regularities were ‘Plot and Bash’ regs. After our
performance on the North Yorkshire we were rather nervous to face this type of
navigation again. An early night was on the cards and we were tucked up in bed
by 11pm.
A
mixture of nerves and excitement proved very detrimental to my early night,
after four hours of staring at the ceiling, I finally drifted off to sleep
03.30am. We both woke up early so that we could double check the trip before
our noise test and the start of the rally. Needless to say I was exhausted and
just hoped that Elise had got a good nights sleep so one of us would be on good
form.
We
ended up re-calibrating the trip as it was a little off, which may have been
down to the traffic we encountered the day before, this made us a couple of
minutes late for our noise test and didn’t bode well for the rest of the day.
It is amazing what a sausage sandwich and a cuppa can do, within twenty minutes
we were ready to go, although the nerves were still present.
9.56
was our start time and it was straight into a regularity, this was definitely a
shock to the system. The only advantage being that it was a Jogularity, with
tulip diagrams and the correct distances, which is technically easier than
other forms of navigation. What
really caught us out at the first timing point were two passage controls before it around triangles and, although
we ran early to account for this, we still came in 45 seconds late. We pulled
this back a little on the next two timing points with a 16 seconds late and 7
seconds early.
Then
it was time for three tests in Hildebrand Barracks, all on tarmac. I was a
little worried with one of the instructions ‘free turn’ as I thought the area
would be tight and that other competitors would pull out a Jay turn. However
there was a lot of space and we completed the whole test in 22 seconds over bogey, faster than
half the field competing!
The
second test was pretty straight forward with another ‘free turn’ and a slalom
up and back through five cones, again we came in 22 seconds over bogey. I didn’t manage the third as quick but with
no reversing and some great 360’s around cones we did manage it in 37 seconds
over. My luck was not destined to last.
It
was the onto the next regularity, the first of the Plot and Bash regs, the
Marshals counted us down to our start minute then handed over the instructions.
As I glanced over before driving off all I saw was a squiggly line but Elise
translated it into a tracing and plotted it on route perfectly. The regularity
began as a pleasant Sunday morning drive on the beautiful Yorkshire roads, but
we weren’t the only ones out to enjoy them, so were the bikers, the cyclists
and the tourists. Baulking was guaranteed, so our times over the six timing
points varied greatly, 51 sec at the first then 0.07, 0.58, 0.09, 0.13 and
0.14.
Hawpike
farm was the location of the next two tests, the first was a rather steep hill
climb and although we were just 22 seconds off bogey most crews were a lot
faster. The next one was where my tiredness really came into play, a longer
test over a farm track and a field. Most crews cut straight over the field
reducing their times drastically, not realising this was a viable option we
followed the track around the edge to finish 52 seconds over bogey, slowest car
on the test.
Slightly
downhearted we began regularity three, which we had plotted the night before,
the instructions were to go through exactly 54 green cycle dots. Unfortunately
the first timing point was on a lovely open road and downhill, I couldn’t help
myself, we were 24 seconds early, but I regret nothing! The following timing
points we were five seconds late and then three seconds early, which we were
very happy with.
Test
six was a great test that I really enjoyed, at Coldstones quarry, a long fast
test with multiple slaloms, which the TR4 handles really well. I thought we had
a good time but again we were one of the slowest cars through.
Regularity
four was our best regularity, we were handed the instructions at the Main
control so had a couple of minutes to plot before reaching the reg start. We
hit the timing points eight seconds early, eleven seconds late and then one
second early. This may have lulled us into a false sense of security as it was
straight into Regularity five another plot and bash.
As
the instructions to this regularity were handed over I heard Elise groan, it
was tulip diagrams with no distances, our nightmare from the previous rally was
beginning again. We began ok but misread a tulip because it didn’t seem exact
enough for the junction, Elise even double checked it with me and we decided to
go straight on where we should have turned left. Eventually we realised and
turned around but we got the maximum penalty of one minute at the control, 200m
from the junction in question.
Three
more tests back at the quarry followed, with one of them in the quarry itself.
It was great sliding around but unfortunately I stalled off the start line, rather
embarrassing, so our time was terrible. The next test we got to do twice, it
was practically test six in the opposite direction, with fast times and slaloms
through cones, our times were 38 over bogey the first time and 33 the second.
The
last regularity of the day went very well, we actually managed to clear a
timing point, then we were four early and 23 late. Before we knew it we were on
the last test at Scargill reservoir, slightly different as we got to drive in convoy through the test slowly in
reverse before turning around and driving it for real. Then it was onto the
finish.
Unfortunately
with a five hour drive and work the next day we had to load the TR4 onto the
trailer and leave straight away, we were on the M5 when someone kindly messaged
us with the results. We were very surprised to find out that we had finished 46th overall
and first in our class!
Another
great one day event and definitely on the calendar for next year !
Seren x
