BMMC MAGAZINE - British Motor Racing Marshals Club

We stopped for a spot of lunch and at this point we were 14 th from the bottom. We still had to go out in
the same order as we did first thing as we weren’t getting reseeded until we got to the Supper Halt. The
rest of the selectifs went very well and we were passing other competitors who had broken down with
such things as broken drive shafts and suspension struts. The car was going from strength to strength
and so was Paul gaining confidence with each test. The only incident we encountered was a flat front tyre
towards the end of the second to last selectif. We limped to the finish line where we pulled over to let
other cars behind us finish without being held up and we found we got penalised for this as we didn’t
cross the finish line in the correct way. Anyway off we went, changed the tyre and then headed off to the
day time regularity before completing the rest of the selectifs and then headed off to the Supper Halt.
Pauls driving was absolutely fantastic. I had every faith in him to get us round the course in one piece
and on one particular selectif his driving skills were put to the test. We were going through a farm, driving
alongside the fields and coming to a very nasty 90 right which after coming round there were some logs
on the left side of the road. Paul managed to miss these but at the same time nearly wrapped us around
a tree trying to avoid the logs. It was at this point that I decided to look up and if it wasn’t for the
harnesses I would have been in Paul’s lap because I flinched that much. Paul managed to miss the tree,
not altogether though as it brushed the passenger side mirror knocking it out of place. If it wasn’t for his
fast thinking and reaction we would have been out of the rally at that point for sure. There was another
part where we were going through the woods and ended up going over a rather sharp crest and landed
hard on the other side. Paul could have sworn he’d ripped the sump guard off at that point though we
couldn’t see any debris at the end, mind you Paul was driving that fast I don’t think we would have had a
chance to see much behind us. At the end of that selectif the Marshals were asked if there was much
damage to the underneath of the car and before we knew it there was like 3 or 4 marshals on their kneed
having a look underneath for us and all came back with “Nope nothing’s wrong, it’s nice and clean, you’re
fine”. We both looked at each other in surprise, shrugged our shoulders and carried on.
At the end of a 5 mile double looped forest and tarmac selectif around a manor house reminiscent of the
old RAC stages through Harwood house or Longleet back in the good old days, Paul pulled the car up at
the finish check point, we were both very hyper after what seemed like ages but was only 8 or so minutes
and if you had seen the tracks we were on, some of you wouldn’t like to even ride a mountain bike on let
alone smash along them at 60+ MPH, I turned to Paul sniffing and almost shouted at him "WHATS
BURNING" he looked straight back at me with a wicked wide eyed grin "PROBABLY EVERYTHING" it
was that unmistakeable smell of burning mud, oils and boiling brake fluid , what a mental way to spend
your Saturday afternoon! None of that football rubbish.
After Supper we were able to see where we had been reseeded and how well or badly we had done
during the day. We were now 8 th from bottom with about 6 cars already retired. Our time to go out was at
2230 and we were only allowed to get the night time envelope at 2130 and not a minute before. As soon
as I sat down and looked at this envelope – whilst Paul went back to the car to get maps and check the
cars fluids, that was it, the nerves kicked in again at the sight of what lay in front of me. I had 67 map
references to plot over 3 OS Maps to get us from the Supper Halt back to the Clubhouse in Ross and an
hour to plot it in.
Trip number 4 to the ladies room ensued and this time I was even worse as I was shaking that badly that I
7