Legend
Fires Northwest Stages Rally, Blackpool, 6-7 January 2015
The
Legend Fires Northwest Stages Rally is renowned as a tough one driven over a
challenging 27 stages and, considering this was our first time at this
prestigious event, we were happy with the result - just missing out on a top 10 finish. But, as
you’ll see from my ‘rally diary’ we could have secured a much higher placing if
not for a couple of hiccups … here’s my view from the driving seat.
We were seeded 22nd going into the event and
were raring to go when the mayor of Blackpool waved us off at the ceremonial
start outside the Norbreck Castle Hotel.
First up was stage one’s eight mile drive in the dark to
SS1 Weeton army barracks and although it wasn’t raining we opted for wet tyres
as it was very cold and damp. We soon found our tyre pressures far too high though
and dropped them for stage two which was a rerun of stage 1.
Stage three at Trax go-kart circuit brought us our first
crowd-pleasing moment as it was extremely slippy and we went into the first
corner far too fast. It was a scary moment really from inside the car but we
seemed to make it look quite good as, with a quick tug on the handbrake, we hit
the bollards on the merge and then took out a pile of tyres. Came out of it
fine, apart from damaging the bumper and splitting our washer bottle.
Stage five and six were a one mile blast down Blackpool
seafront ending with a series of hairpins in front of large crowds at a
specially designed spectator area. We were delighted to be laying 7th overall
at the end of the day and leg one - and were looking forward to next 22 stages.
The weather on leg two was forecast to be dry and we set
of from the 45 minute service area on cut soft slick tyres heading to stages
seven and eight at Lytham Hall. This stage started with two very long single
track fifth gear straights through a twisty farmyard section onto a very muddy
woodland and then back onto the tarmac in front of the hall before a long fast
series of bends to the flying finish.
Back to Weeton barracks for stages 8 and 9, and very happy
to post 7th fastest on both stages.
We arrived at the next two stages at the Docks to notice
that all our tyres, especially the fronts, were completely shot. Despite this, we were pleased and surprised
to end up with a 7th and 6th fastest times in these stages.
But it was on the spectator stages at Fleetwood, where the
poor condition of the tyres came to bear on the first pass through - we took
the hairpin left at the boating lake really well but managed to puncture the
front offside tyre. This slowed us down and we ended up 53th fastest which
dropped us three places to 9th o\a.
Then things got much worse - we realised we hadn’t got a
spare tyre in the boot. We’d decided not to carry a spare to save weight and as
we had a chase car following us for support. However, we had just sent the
mechanics in the chase car back to service to buy new tyres ready for our
return to service. So we were stuck with that flat.
We therefore took the decision to drive stage 13 with a
front offside puncture. This caused quite a lot of finger-pointing excitement from
the spectators when we approached the start-line with a tyre that was flat and
half off the rim. Yes we did know we had a flat thank you, but we were going to
carry on anyway…
The car naturally under steered on the left corners and
was a handful under braking. Nevertheless we got round and in total lost only 50
seconds on both stages.
Feeling quite pleased with that, we called the chase car
to see how far off they were and were horrified to learn that they were still
eight miles away. We instructed them to get to us as quickly as possible and drove
towards them on the road section on the rim of the wheel as for as long as were
dare without damaging the car. Three miles of that and we pulled up and waited.
We were relieved when they finally arrived and quickly
changed the wheel and set off to service where a fresh set of soft slicks were
waiting and, thankfully, road lateness had been extended.
We then had a short drive from service to SS14 and 15 Promenade
3 and 4 but here we took our second blow. Due to a co-driver error clocking the
time we left service, we checked in one minute early on the first pass and two
minutes early on the second which landed us with a three minute penalty and
moved us down to 34th o\a.
We felt pretty despondent when we heard this news and
Mathew was gutted, however we gave ourselves a talking to, pressed on and set
some good times for the remainder of the event.
Stages 16 and 17 at Weeton army camp again went well and we
set eighth fastest time and then third fastest at both runs through the Dock
stages. Stages 20 and 21 were a run through the dunes at Fleetwood, where we
set tenth and fifth fastest times.
On to a 25 minute service and then two runs through the
Promenade stage, where we had a minor bump hitting a water butt on the second
chicane and damaged our offside wing.
A serious accident then prevented the second run through
and both these stages were cancelled – our thoughts are with the drivers
injured in this incident.
On to two further passes through the Lytham Hall stage
and we were sixth fastest through both which pulled us back to 18th o\a.
The final two 5.6 mile stages a Weeton went very well - both
were clean runs and we posted seventh on the first and fifth on the second which
left us finishing the rally in 11th o\a.
We were happy with the result just missing out on a top
10 finish. In the final analysis, we’ve
worked out that without the puncture that lost us 50 seconds and the three
minute time penalty, we would have finished fourth overall and first in class!
Now that would have been something to celebrate and we are looking forward to
next year already…
Thanks as usual to our sponsors F & G Commercials,
DAF, Mirage Electronic Cigarettes, Quidbake, Method Racewheels, Forester
Rallying and Sheffield Rolling Road.
And, it would be wrong not to mention and give thanks to
all the people involved in making this event happen and in particular John
Stone of Legend Fires as primary sponsor, Blackpool Council, the organising
motor clubs and the many hundreds of marshals and volunteers. Congratulations
to you all and we look forward to seeing you again next year.
