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Somerset Stages Rally 2008

Malc Hague/Dave Read

Car 207

MG-ZR 1.4L (Group N)

57th O/A and 1st in class

It was just over 1 week ago when I was having a conversation with John Goff on how disappointed I was about not being able to go to the Somerset Stages due to the Escort not being ready, so John suggested we sort out a deal to use the MG-ZR sitting in his workshop all ready to go!!!!!

The questions I had to ask myself were:

Can I drive a front wheel drive car?

Do I want to be in a car with less power than the service barge????

Will I make an idiot of myself?

Well I’ve never been afraid of making a fool of myself and I didn’t have much to do at home so I called Dave and asked him if he fancied it, to which he agreed after some persuasion!!

The championship points would certainly be most welcome, so we went for it!

Dave suggested we enter as group N1 (1.4L ) but I thought we should enter in our Escort class for the points! (Dave won !)

So we arrived in Minehead on Friday evening and checked into our room at Butlins (Don’t laugh), sorted out scrutineering and went for dinner and an early-ish night! (Missing the 70’s entertainment at Butlins)

Stages 1 to 3

I can’t say that we were any more nervous than usual as the pressure to win was not there, it was just to finish and secure some points.

It couldn’t have started worse! we were sat on the start line of the 1st stage and the clock was on 15 seconds, well I looked down at my feet and couldn’t figure out what to do, I just had a mental block then it was 5,4,3,2,1,Go and I forgot to put it in gear (Duh!), anyway after the start we got going quite well until the first real bend, I chucked it in and we were all over the place, torque steer almost shot us into a bank and then the car was pointing the wrong way to get round the corner, oh dear it was going to be a long day!!!!

Stage 2 was a little better as we found the handbrake worked quite well even with drum brakes on the back, but on tight hairpins it would not go into 1st gear and so again we looked stupid with a box full of neutrals in the middle of a corner!!

The biggest problem was getting used to the lack of power, on some of the uphill sections Dave and I had a chat about the weather, etc, it was quite bad for we are used to almost 100 bhp more! Basically double the power in the Escort! So our times being rubbish gave us 99th o/A and 5th in class. Impressive eh?? L

Back in service we changed onto the slicks for Porlock hill, which I was looking forward to as I think I know how to drive FWD on tarmac!!

The car was checked over and off we went.

Stages 4 & 5

With a wheel spin off the line we were away and all was going well until the 2nd hairpin, when it happened again, down through the gears to second, then handbrake on and select 1st but we were still going to fast and it didn’t go in, so it was a box full of neutrals, and me looking a prat again, so this time I waved to the crowd and we pushed on up the hill.

Stage 5, was much better with no mistakes, we did overall times of 91st and 86th respectively but more importantly we moved up to 4th in class and only 7 seconds behind 3rd, could we get on the class podium????

Back to service and back onto the Silverstone gravel tyres, another quick check over found that the smell of fuel we had experienced on the last two stages was where the fuel pipe exited the tank.

Luckily the mechanics had time to drop the tank guard and fuel tank to make repairs, then we were off again but not without a word of advice from Mr Goff.

I had asked why the car was struggling going into 1st John advised that my technique was wrong and suggested another way of doing it.

Stages 6,7

On the next couple of stages I tried to make the car do what I thought it should do rather than reacting. The result was that we were improving our times and apart from a couple of corners when I chucked it sideways to scrub off some speed and it failed to come back round, maybe I had the power off instead of on, but I am not sure, any way we stayed on the road!!

I was starting to enjoy myself, the car was responding and going sideways almost at will!! We were now 1st in class and taking time off all the other 1.4L runners.

With no problems at the Auxiliary Service we continued on to the next couple of stages.

Stages 8, 9 & 10

There was nothing to report until we sat on the arrival control at stage 10 when Dave commented that there was steam coming from the front of the car.

We had sprung a leak! It was the top of the radiator. We used our water bottles and filled the header tank up from a stream and nursed the car through the next stage which was 3½ miles long, and then thankfully it was service again.

The problem was a split radiator so Ian drove into town in search of a replacement.

After tracking down the owner of a (closed) accessory shop he managed to get one, this was fitted by the fantastic service crew from Rallyschool.co.uk, then we were on our way again to complete the last 2 stages.

Stages 11 & 12

There were no more drama’s and we finished a very creditable 57th O/A and 1st in class, a great result for us and Rallyschool in one of the lowest powered cars in the event.

Thanks to John Goff and all the Rallyschool crew for giving us the opportunity to show that even at our age we are not just a One Trick Pony!

See you on the Dukeries!

Malc & Dave