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Ford Escort MK 11 1400cc

Driver Malcolm Hague

Co Driver’s Dave Read

Car 206

This year we had the added problem of snow, in our quest of getting to Chepstow for a weekend’s rallying in the Forest of Dean, with our reduced budget our accommodation would be on my son Rick`s floor!

After surviving scrutineering we headed back to base for an evening of festivities and blowing up airbeds! but an early night!!!

There was talk of the snow turning to ice for the start! and it was!.

With the temperature at -8C in places, was the Forest of Dean ready for us, or more to the point were we ready for The Forest of Dean!

Stage 1 Sallowvallets

We made the journey to the start, a bright clear morning and the stage was frozen solid, some even had trouble getting into the stage and with no room to pass anyone at the arrival control we had to be content to start behind a couple of cars slower than us!

We set off into the stage with no grip, sliding all over the place, it wasn’t long before we came upon our first problem.

Richard Sykes had gone off and was standing by the car laughing at us presumably coz we were out of control! anyway, as I was hurling abuse back at him I forgot to control the car and spun 180 so we were back facing him then had to travel WD to get speed up to flick it back round and off we went!

A couple of miles further on we caught Clive Anstey who was struggling at 10 mph, although we let him know that we wanted to pass him, he had nowhere to go, so we had to sit behind him for the last couple of miles.

It was a real bad start with around 2 minutes lost we were only 7th 1400. and 97th overall! The worst start to an event I can remember.

Stage 2 Serridge 1

We had to do better on this stage or we may as well go home! We managed to get our place in the queue at the arrival so shouldn’t have any hold ups with only Nathan Davies out of position in front of us!

I guess it was inevitable but the first tight corner on the stage was a hairpin left and there was Nathan! Blocking the road completely having spun! Well we managed to get round him, but it was more precious seconds lost.

The rest of that stage was relatively trouble free if you accept that we were bouncing from one side of the road to the other trying to keep it between the trees with no grip it was going to be a long day.

Although the car was holding together!

Now back to 79th o/a and 3rd 1400

Stage 3 Speech House

This was to be the first stage that we were to have no problems on! We danced our way through bouncing from side to side and entertaining the spectators to the best of my ability at the same time trying to go as fast as I could without crashing! With only a half spin I could be content that we were in control, Just!

Still 75th and 3rd in class but more important 1st registered BTRDA crew and heading for maximum points to start the championship!

Stage 4 Peircefield Park

At last a bit of road that wasn’t frozen!

We had a reputation for being quick around the racecourse so now was a good time to let our new friends (messers Middleton and Pinchin!) know that we were contenders for the championship and show them all the way!

Well we did and we were 2 seconds quicker than all the other 1400s that felt good!

Service

We had no real problems to report , the tyres were still like new and the car felt good so check all the levels and off we go again

Stage 5 Chepstow Park

If there was an award for pretty then this stage would have won it!!

But we started badly with a half spin on the very first corner then went off again losing about 20 seconds or so in total which although dropped us into the pack, we were still holding on to 3rd and with Mailscott cancelled we only had to get through 1 more stage to claim a moral victory!

Mailscott

Cancelled

Stage 7 Serridge 2

We had to drive well on this stage as 75% of it had been used already (Stage 2) but the other 25% was going to be virgin snow and ice!

We left the start line and were going well until the left hand hairpin as it was still icy even after 160 cars had been through you just couldn’t predict where the ice was and where you could push as I found our another half mile in, it was a fairly straight section with deep snow off line we were doing about 50 mph and I caught the snow on the left which pushed me into the snow on the right head on, heading straight for a radio car on full right lock I just hoped it would come round, but if I missed the car there was a tree waiting, if I missed the tree there was a gate post, so I decided this was going to hurt!

The front started to come round and we hit the gate post with the front wing and hit it hard! But it pushed us back onto the track, we stopped and gathered ourselves together and set off again.

Time wise I guess it was about 15 seconds before we got back in the groove, I felt I had to get those precious seconds back and drove like a man possessed for the rest of the stage pushing my luck on every corner using all of the width of the stage to keep the momentum going, we then came to a caution Pot hole should I back off or should I go for it!

Don’t be silly anyway the result of not backing off was the alternator sheared off its brand new brackets and the ign light came on, so off with any electrics that weren’t essential and hoped we had enough battery to get through.

Towards the last part of the stage the gearbox started playing up, 3rd synchro cried enough and did not want to stay in and then 4th was very stiff coming back down the box but we struggled on and eventually made it to the end.

All we had to do now was get back to Chepstow.

We left management service patched up and headed for Chepstow as we hit the main road the gearlever was stuck solid in 4th gear and wouldn’t come out.

We had a similar problem on the Roger Albert Clark rally in 07 when we lost all but 5th gear in Keilder, anyway I knew the car was capable of making it those few miles but there were still a couple of hills, the clutch was getting hot but we made it to the racecourse and finished !

OK the position was crap but of all the Silverstone tyres and Championship contenders we finished First with Maximum points!!!

Well done all

Thanks to Rick and Katie for the house and thanks to all the team for a great weekend!

Cheers

Malc n Dave

And we now move on to Cockermouth to the Malcolm Wilson Rally on the 7th March so see you there!!!

Ford Escort MK 11 1400cc

Driver Malcolm Hague

Co Driver’s Dave Read

Car 205

We arrived in Cockermouth in plenty of time which was just as well as we needed to sort the tyres out, which we had left to the last minute because of the changeable weather.

We decided that the forecast was wrong and expected to have snow on the top of comb at least so we would leave the chunkie’s on that we had been successful with on the Wyedean.

Then we realised that there was no super unleaded fuel anywhere to be bought in Cockermouth so while we went off to M Sport for scrutineering the boys trolled off to Penrith for some fuel!

All went well in Scrutineering and we set off to find our accommodation.

Stage 1 Hobcarton

I had made the bold prediction that we were going to hit the front right from the off so I thought I had better give it a go.

We had been told that there was snow right on the top but the rest of the stages were ok, now where had I heard that before!!!!!!!!!!!

After a couple of miles or so, we hit our first problem, Richard Sykes had somehow rolled the car onto its side in the middle of the stage they were out of the car trying to push it back on its wheels, we slowed to make sure they were ok and they waved us through but it had cost us precious seconds.

We had a clear run through the rest of the stage, the high point being the Blue Peter moment ( A white sheet with Go Malc in massive letters, so of course I had to give them a toot on the old horn!), although we didn’t get any others stage times at this point it turned out that we were fastest 1400 by 6 seconds!

Stage 2 Comb

There was a short road section and then we were into the forest for this stage and this is where the snow was, also the scene of our roll on black ice in 2005.

We did take it very gingerly over the icy bits which incidentally were on a fresh air right hander very scary, and then down to the left hander where we had rolled but thankfully we had no moments other than the fan belt coming off again.

The second half of the stage went really well and we were hopeful that the time we lost due to the slow run through the ice could be made up, but it wasn’t to be.

We dropped into 2nd, again we saw the Go Malc banner and again we pipped the horn but this time I got shouted at as we were in the middle of a square left into and I was defo not concentrating!!

But we scrambled through.

Stage 3 Wythop

This time the fan belt had gone before we got going and although it was a fairly short stage it was very fast and we were on the rev limiter in 5th about 105 mph which is fast enough on gravel.

I was starting to enjoy myself and after 3 stages we were 5 seconds down on Middleton and 5 up on Pinchin.

With just Greystoke and then Service I was looking forward to the grizedale stages in the afternoon.

Stage 4 Greystoke 1

The fan belt was replaced on the road section and more fuel was put in and we were off to Greystoke.

We started the stage well and it soon became apparent that the extensive testing that the Ford works team had been doing all week had made the stage surface a joke.

There were bone shattering compressions and holes in the gravel going down to concrete.

I was concerned that we were going to do some damage to the car.

We made it until with around 2 miles to go after a particularly rough section after a hairpin there was a square left and although the car was positioned perfectly into the corner, there was a rock sticking into the road and we caught it with the left front wheel.

Although there was not a big impact it was obviously enough and a couple of corners further on we lost the steering and went into the ditch!

Our rally was over as the steering arm nuts had sheared on the N/S front wheel causing the wheel to go on full left lock thus pulling us into the ditch.

We were lucky to escape without more damage.

Never Mind still plenty of time to pull it back and go for the championship!

Cheers

Malc n Dave

Ford Escort MK 11 1400cc

Malcolm Hague & Dave Read

Car 204

Following a retirement on the Malcolm Wilson Rally we desperately needed a good result on the Somerset Stages in order to keep our BTRDA Championship hopes alive.

So the aim was definitely a top 3 finish.

The drama started even before we had left home on Friday morning, when a frantic phone call told us that the Silverstone Tyres Van had broken down on the M6 at Knutsford.

In order to help out one of our sponsors we had to load both Paul Cox's van and the Chrysler voyager to the brim with tyres and get them down to scrutineering in Minehead.

As is normal these days, Scrutineering and noise went OK, the scrutineers generally know the car now.

So we were checked into our hotel by 6:30pm before going for a meal and a few pints in the middle of Minehead.

This is one of the better rallies for Friday night socialising, as you are guaranteed to meet up with quite a good few of the other crews in the 'Hairy Dog'.

This was topped off with Mr Hague performing karaoke in the 'Duke of York'

On the run up to the event we were concerned that dust might be a problem, however a heavy shower overnight cured that potential problem.

So at 4th car on the road we left the Butlins start to on our way to the first stage.

SS1 Timberscombe

This is only a short 1.5 mile stage, very fast but with a couple of nasty bends.

We had spent a good amount of time studying this stage using both previous years 'in car footage' and Patterson's DVD.

In particular there is a kink about 1/4 mile in from the start that we believed could be taken a lot faster than the notes indicated, thus allowing us to keep the speed up for the very fast section.

We really think this paid off because we were fastest 1400, 5secs faster than the current championship leader Graham Middleton.

The other point of significance was that Mark Gamble who had started 1-minute in front of us had got it totally wrong on the triple cautioned 90 right, just before the end of the stage, and was way off the road, on his side in the trees.

That was one possible rival out of the way!!

SS2 Croydon

This was the first of 2 long 10 mile stages in Croydon Forest.

We set off with Malc driving in a very controlled smooth style (Yes really).

Everything seemed to be flowing, no dramas, no moments, but still carrying good speed.

We got to the end and Malc was convinced that we had set a slow time, but in fact we were 2nd fastest 1400, only 2 seconds behind the local driver Nick Priddy, but more importantly 9 secs faster than the current 1400 champion Darren Pinchin and 16 secs faster than Middleton.

SS3&4 Chargott

This is a double run at a 3 mile forest spectator stage.

The first run through showed us that there was much less grip than in the earlier stages.

This was perhaps the first indication of Malc's committed driving for the rest of the day, coming round the downhill left hander into the open hairpin right in the spectator amphitheatre, I was convinced that we were going too fast and were about to hit a bale and lose it.

However a flick of the car and an armful of opposite lock saw us drifting around in what must have looked from the outside like perfectly co-ordinated style.

We did lose a few seconds on these stages to the local drivers but matched the times of our Silverstone shod championship rivals.

So now we were lying 2nd 1400 overall.

Butlins Service Area 1

A 20 minute service for a change of tyres to grooved Slicks and a good check over seemed like plenty of time, that is until Ian found that the throttle cable was frayed and about to break.

So with the minutes counting down the lads were frantically trying to fit new cables. This was completed with literally seconds to spare to our due time out, but with final adjustments still to be made on the road section to Porlock.

The funny part of service was the conversation with Nick Priddy who had come over to ask us how we were beating him as he knew the stages like the back of his hand! (he lives in the area!) he informed me that he was going to beat us to a pulp on Croydon 2 and as he took 3 seconds off us in the morning, I was scared ?!

Porlock 1

The first run up here started stupidly and caused me to lose my temper which was obviously a good thing as with our time, the reason being, we were told to go a minute early and I was not ready but with the clock ticking down from 5 the marshall said you go on THIS minute! So I hit the throttle and all that preparation paid off as we were not on it! fastest 1400 but fastest 2 wheel drive and 8th fastest on the event!

Phew!

Porlock 2

We could never expect to go quicker than the first run and the adrenalin was not pumping quite as hard that is until we realised that we could see a car in the distance!

It was Middleton in the Suzuki we caught him fairly quickly and it was obvious that he had a problem, he slowed us up for a short while but then moved over and we shot past but he had held us up and we went 7 seconds slower than the first run!

Never mind that was another of our rivals out of contention!

Back to Minehead and onto the new Silverstone soft forest tyres for the final part of the rally with our lead now 17 seconds over Priddy and more importantly the next BTRDA competitor Pinchin 32 seconds adrift.

Croydon 2

We had broken the camera on the Porlock stage so I have no proof of our drive on this stage but all I can say is that we were flying, we took most of the hairpins at full chat and left the braking till the last minute, thus was the confidence in the car and I loved it.

I felt at one with the car and don't think it would be possible to drive that car any faster than we did on this stage.

Dave was starting to call the notes louder and faster than normal and that made me go even faster, there were people clapping as we drove past them so we know we were 'on it' a great experience and surely the fastest time????

No!

3 other cars beat us by 4 seconds including Nick Priddy the local boy!

So I guess that was a little disappointing but that was the longest stage of the afternoon by far and we were still 13 seconds in the lead!

Whitswood

I was annoyed again but this time because Pinchin had gone faster, when I thought we should have won that last stage, so again we lit the back end up off the start line and blasted though the stage, 1 mile not such a long stage but we were fastest 1400 again but only by 1 second!

Knowle 2

Only 3 miles to go and another 1400 win was ours! We set off and drove well but about 2 miles in I heard a clonking sound like something banging against the body but could not christen the noise, with no power loss we carried on and 300 to 400 metres from the finish we lost drive, there was nothing I could do, it turns out that all the teeth had sheared off the pinion and the diff had gone, our day was over, so cruel and so close to the finish!!

To say we were gutted was an understatement and our 2009 BTRDA was finished.

See you in 2010

Thanks to every one for all your hard work and the Lester family for the inspiration!

Cheers

Malc n Dave