Thanks to the respective "Snappers" who were there taking pictures.........

Well the S & L Motors Rally Team and www.mdx2.co.uk decided to put an entry in to see if we could beat that Markko Martin Bloke in his WRC 08 Scooby. Well we gave it a good go but as most plans it didn’t quite follow the route that we wanted, infact it strayed a very long way off it!! So far off it was off the sat nav!!

This bit is really only applicable to those there, but it still was worth a mention, question time, who though Richards Dad’s speech was moving at the awards ceremony, I think he was impressed, but one thing I wasnt pleased about was the lack of people there at the awards presentation, it wasn’t your average event, it was done for a reason and we were there to remember him, least we showed up, there were plenty that had been invited that never did!!! (rant over!!!)

On to the event: Well it was looking debateable if we were ever going to make it as the car was still in lots of bits running up to the latter part of the week. I had gone down to Marham Friday night taking the Slick Tyres Landrover with Trailer full of tyres and equipment so didn’t know if the car and driver decided to set off sat am and he didn’t answer his phone on Sat morning…….So I was pacing like an expectant father!!!

They did show up eventually, they though would be funny to ignore me Finally after they had cleared security we got set up and waited for start time to arrive, firstly we thought we were late due to the Ceremonial Start thing that we didn’t even know about, unless I had missed it, confused us both! Then I clicked what it was, so panic over.

SS1 CONE BLINDNESS!!!! I’ve never seen so many cones in one place, but the green ones kind of blended in to the grass so made it difficult to define, and few issues with the road book not being as accurate for some parts of it. But we managed to set a good time on the first stage of 9.3miles and set the pace for the event, a massive spin in front of video camera on the 90L before the merge cost us but I didn’t know it was slippery. But got through it easily enough

Andy Manson - M and H photography

SS 2- We even had a bit of a battle with Markko as he came round for another lap we were coming onto the merge, Said to Lee “Markko is behind us” reply was “So, when he wants to get past he will” and eventually he did and then he got past so gave chase in a MKII Escort, while we were chasing him Lee said, “ha, bet you’ll not forget this, a WRC Driver behind us and now where chasing him down” Wish we had in car camera now!!! Eventually an engine electrical problem on the stage which was also the longest of the event 15.6 miles, soon slowed us down.

Andy Manson - M and H photography

Coming in to service after stage 2 the team changed the coil, plugs and plug leads thinking it was a component on the engine that was causing the problem. Stage 3 felt really good until just over the half way point of the 14.6 mile stage and the problem returned with the rev limiter cutting in too soon and getting worse as the stage wore on, and as we went up the gears it got lower!! So resulted in short shifting up the box

Into service again rushing round for a laptop with engine management software on it after having spoken to several people that had all said the same thing but this was to no avail, and we made the decision to short shift as to not over heat the drivers for the coil in the ECU, to hopefully keep the position that we held.

Thankfully there were a few of the challengers in the class dropping by the wayside and eventually got through the final stage of day 1, short shifting again in an attempt to hold on to class position

With an over night result of 25th overall and 3rd in class, with 4th in class only 1 second behind them. We were hoping to be able to fix the problem over night and return to defend the position that we had.

Eventually one of the service crew managed to get hold of Lee’s daughter who was still at home in Cropwell Bishop (Nottinghamshire), to then pop over to a friends house to pick up a desktop pc with the correct programme on it as the laptop that was eventually found didn’t have the correct plug on it, to then travel the 3 hours down to Marham to bring the computer to hopefully cure the issue that was blighting us

Sunday morning saw an interesting set up of a Ford Escort MKII being plugged in to a computer to read the engine management system, and assistance from a fellow competitor thought they had rectified the problem.

So off on to the stages again, with 4 long stages through the day, this was going to be a real challenge and we were hoping that the problems that we had the day before were rectified.

SS5 was 14 miles so was to us and car a bit of a work out and after the stage the looking like the problem looking was cured, and pulled out a bigger margin over the crew that were only 1 second behind them over night. Which it had and we were on a Mission to prove that old escorts were a good ol car!!

Stage 6 we to be blighted with brake problems and over heating brakes causing fade at high speeds was un-nerving entering some of the tighter sections carrying a lot of speed from the previous sections but still 23 seconds faster than SS5

Interim results after 6 stages with 2 stages to go showed that they were still 3rd in class and 19th overall, the decision was made to back off slightly even though they were taking time out of the crew that were in the 2nd in class position but the deficit was too much to overhaul in 2 stages and they were over 2 minutes in front of them and 1st in class was over 5 minutes.

SS7 - Saw Orange Cossack after his mating with the hole after the spectator bit, and thanks for pulling over to let us past after the HPR Uphill, into the really fast bit on the top end.

SS8 – Even faster again really pushing to just show that it can be done with out a turbo and 4WD, and we were smiling, had some big skids and the Marshals clapping as we went round really made it worth while, even Lee managed a wave back!!!

We never even thought that we would get anywhere and lady luck for us and lady un luck for others pushed us up the tables, so really pleased with the 1st in Class and a brilliant 15th overall.

If only had been on full song from the word go would have been interesting to see the times compared to others, we will be back……..

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