It had been going so well, perhaps not quite as quickly as I would have liked, but by Wednesday, the car was ready for loading onto the trailer on Thursday morning. Until that was, when I came to shut the drivers door. Why now!!!
The door lock had self destructed. Sadly there was no permanent repair, it needed a new handle, so a temporary fix.
As we were due in Leominster at 11.00 am for scrutineering, Andrew & I had an early start and that's when we had our next little character building exercise.
As I drove the car up onto the trailer, the clutch release bearing gave up the ghost. We had smoke coming out off all sorts of places where there wasn't supposed to be smoke. Seemed to me that the car was trying to tell me something. A pity I didn't listen, as it turned out.
After a quick update for Richard, who had travelled up the day before and the decision was made. We would try to do a four and a half hour job in three and a half, if we couldn't then there was no point in going, we would have missed the cut off for scrutineering.
Calls to the local factors and dealers failed to locate a clutch kit, so we robbed the one from the Davrian donor engine. By the time we had the car back on it's wheels, the only thing to do was send Andrew off with the car, I would clear up, repack the van and follow later. Andrew made it with five minutes to spare, much to everyone's relief.
By the time I got to the service area at Brightwell's, the crew were on their way to the first two stages in Radnor. This year, the service area was just as chaotic as the last time we did the event. Eventually we found a tiny space and set up our service spot.
The first indication that the night was going to be a bit of a challenge, was a message from Stefan informing us that the 00 car had gone off in the opening stage. An hour was lost waiting for the stage to be cleared.
As the event was reverse seeded, Richard and Stefan were one of the few crews to get a run through Radnor 1 before it was stopped again. The next message told us that stage 2 was cancelled and to expect them shortly.
An 8.78 mile stage in dense fog was all they had to show for a for 60+ miles trip. They finally made it back to Leominster and time for me to say Hi to Richard and Stefan. Conditions had been awful and the super new lights had helped at all. Far too bright, so dip beams for most of the stage. Ever the optimist, I was hoping for better things on Friday.
Following overnight reseeding, we were even further up the order and were due off at shortly after 7.30 am.
Friday was due to be a very long day, following some more Welsh stages, we were due to end the day in Carlisle.
We had decided to forego management, as it was impossible for the management car to get back to service before the rally car. Based on this we thought it better to have both Andrew and I available in the service area on Epynt.
The crew had a 58 mile run out to the first stage, the 6.34 mile Crychan 1 before the 5.43 Gwibedog 1. A message came through that they were waiting to start stage 4. We had been following them on a tracker app and thought they were still at the stage start but became quite concerned when cars started coming into service.
They were stationary, but not at the stage start. The first we knew of the minor problem, was a picture from Stefan.
The subsequent pictures indicated that for today at least, play was over.
Perhaps it was the end of the event for us.
One major drawback to running at the front of the field, is that you have to wait for everyone else has been through before recovery can take place. It did give Andy & I time to mull over just how the recovery crew would get the car off the boulders.
With a big truck was the answer. Sadly before that could happen, a wayward Swede in a Volvo, took a liking to the back of the Honda. So now we have front and rear damage.
Inevitably there was also some collateral damage getting it back on it's wheels.
For Andrew and I, there was our own mini rally of Epynt, as our access to the stage start, where the car had been recovered to, was hampered by a load of rally cars racing about the ranges.
We did eventually find our way there and it was terminal. We did harbour plans to take it back to the workshop miss a day, and restart on Sunday, but over a late lunch, we put that plan back in the box.
For us The Roger Albert Clark was over and with it my participation in on event servicing in the UK.
