Having managed to catch up, we even managed to get up in time for a bit of breakfast. Then out to the car & surprise, surprise the ****** thing wouldn't start. We were able to persuade David Spurling to give us a little tow to get going.
Today's target was a World Cup Section in the Umbrian Mountains & after our initial problem, we made it to the stage start and joined a long queue. With a long time to wait we had little option but to switch the engine off & hope we could fire it up when the time came.
As our minute approached we tried to fire the car up & again required a push to get going. Rather ominously we had smoke/steam coming from under the bonnet but by the time we got to the control everything seemed to have cleared. The stage was apparently last used on the San Remo rally & I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to drive the stage.
What a stage, the car was great, the surface was superb, even after the passage of about 40 cars and just after the first passage check we caught the car in front, it all seemed to be going very well.[I should have known better]. We had just got into the dust of the next car, when we came around a left hander and headed up a reasonably steep climb, and that's when we started to loose power. Not like we had previously, this seemed different. Thoughts of the steam at the start of the stage came back.We pulled over and all attempts to restart failed.
As we were running towards the back of the field,there wasn't going to be too long to wait & it was quite nice,no rain & a bit of sunshine.
As expected the sweeper car wasn't long in turning up BUT our request for a tow to the end of the stage was a big NO NO. Their remit was, as we had been told but not fully taken on board, NO ASSISTANCE unless it was to take the crew to a place of safety & we were in no danger, so no help.
MMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We had passed a farm house a little further back, so opted to turn round & hope to free wheel back there & see if we could get some help. At least the guys gave us a hand to push the car around.
A couple of attempts to bump start the car on the way down failed to spark life into the engine & it was a desperate final attempt before a small rise that finally persuaded it to fire into life.
We drove back out of the stage and joined the road to Ancona & the ferry. We managed to get most of the way, but stalled when a lorry caught us out at a junction, requiring us to bump start in reverse across a busy junction & then at the final toll booth on the motorway had our encounter with the english girl in the Golf mentioned before.
We made it all the way to the ferry & managed to stall at the check in, having to be pushed onto the boat, not too good.
We managed to borrow a spare injection pump from one of the French crews & after a nice meal headed for bed.
