The Wyedean rally

[CP]

Just got back from it. Dan very kindly offered to act as guide for my day out in the Forest of Dean and what a great day it was :D

Up at 3 am and by 7am we were strolling round the pit area at the race course at Chepstow slobbering all over the tasty rally machinery.
We watched the 1400 class which had a fair few Novas in it do the 1st stage around the race course before heading into the forest. Dans local knowledge got us prime positions to see most of the cars 3 times during the day. :D

The event was won by Andy Burton in his Cosworth Peugeot 306 hybrid. That is some kind of weapon :o He completed around 48 stage miles in just under 43 minutes. We had the pleasure of being next to a mile long straight when he went by absolutely flat out - the experience was like having a mini tornado pass close by :D

There were over 200 hundred entrants - there were 40 or so in the 1400 class. Vehicles ranged from minis and micras to Landrovers.

There are gonna be some photos following plus a small brain teaser for the observant among you.

cheers dan :D

[mikeoxford]

wowsers :o 3am

sounds like a good day was had for all :+:

[Neil.]

When me and my dad were members of the WRC marshalls we use to marshall on the Chatsworth and Derbyshire stages. Mostly doing night stages at 3am-5am.
You'd sign on at 12am, get your position and relivant stuf you'd need, signs for road to warn rally drivers of a checkpoint coming up, tabbards etc.., then go home and back again for 4-5am to to do it.
Me and dad would get set up, have boards for them to stop at our checkpoint, then take their card, stamp it, take note of time and car that came through, then send them off, they would go from over 100MHP to 0MHP within about 50 meters or less, was very exciting!

Remember one car coming through, timed and stamped it, then the co-driver came running back shouting, 'we've rolled the car' we went down, helped turn it back over with driver still in it, and they drove off!

When marshalling at Chatsworth stage we were on water jump and after car had gone through i would go and collect the car parts that came flying off! one time a car went through and it's whole bumper came off! Couldn't take it though as they came back at end to collect it!

Would love to do it again!

[-Bruce-]

sounds well good cp

but the 3am start does not!!! :cry:

[Stuart]

3am being too early?? lol i get up at 5am (thats 4am to you lot) everyday lol



did they try to steal stuff from your cars ?? lol

come on make me jealous and post the pics




I might have to go the the german GP since im slap bang in the middle between hocenheim and nuremburg :D

[locky]

Sounded like a good day!
Il come and cheer you on next year :wink:

[Jim]

Pics will arrive once Dan sorts out his pc. He's had nothing but trouble with it ever since he received a "dodgy" version of XP from someone called "Cambridge" :P

[Will]

:lol: :lol:

needs to be rebuilt by a pro then :lol: :wink:

[Jim]

needs to be rebuilt by a pro then :lol: :wink:

Yep, but John and Breeny wern't about :P

[Stuart]

i belive he didnt use my copy of xp :p

it was kevs ropey version lol

[nova_rally]

Neil you were very lucky - Chatsworth and Tatton Park were some of the Best RAC Rally stages ever (Pundershaw was best though!) Really gutted when they ditched them for all this Wales Rally GB crap, nowhere near the same as the proper WRC rallying of the early 90s.

The Wyedean is usually a top event, and Andy Burton's car, well that's just mental!

Alan

[Dan]

pc still not sorted so pics will arrive as soon as i am sorted, looks like gonna get a brand spanker replacement again on warranty so wont be long.

As for the wyedean, originally part of the rac events and now one of the favoured btrda events of the champoinship by some,it was a cracking day all in all. walked the whole day with the heart of cp's car in my top pocket lol, Started off by me getting an electric shock from the metal fencing around the top of chepstow racecourse wall as we tried to find a way to the pits as the security were very slow at opening the gates :oops: . Once in the pits we continued to marvel at some of the weaponry on display ranging from upto date wrc accent/focus etc etc to old skool 8r4's/manta's and a volvo :? . The nova's were there in force ranging from high spec 1400 16v's down to one with a suzuki 16v engine on 40's etc. One interesting car was a rear wheel drive 1100 blackbird engined pug 205 which went well.

one thing that amused me was a typical grunge type skater layabout with huge hair, running from side to side between cars, but on the last time he managed to loose his shoe in the wet mud and still manage 5/6 steps before realising, needless to say his white socks not white anymore and panic set in with the sound of an oncoming car :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: .

After the normal wrc cars etc went through we started seeing the true tryers in the mk2 escorts landy's astra's etc etc with some nice near misses and sideways action whilst scrabbling for grip. The landy's amused charles mildly as they were pushing harder than the normal cars and showing what they can do when on the limit.

As said andy burton was on form hooning around like a wild thing and for those that know nothing of his 306, you see the odd evo/scooby/wrc focus then seeing his thing going by is fantastic be it broad side in a chicane or hearing him zipping throught the gears until flat out in sixth up some chewed up gravel track you wouldnt walk your dog.

Glad CP enjoyed the day as all in all we spent almost 12hrs stood out wandering and watching, the only down side was when we setup camp along one the long straights only to be followed by a bunch of noisy gets who chose to stand right on the edge of the track within a metre of so of the cars passing flat out and wondering why the cars kept blowing their horns at em lol. got worse as we moved further up, as we were followed by them yet again (i reckon it was cp's deoderant they were following, esp the big fat bird)

right as i said in the start pics will be up asap and i even got some real good action ones for a change lol

Dan

[CP]

I must be mad - got up at 3.30am again on sunday and drove to scotland and back - was home (nr Bedford ) by 5pm :lol: That means i travelled over 1100 miles in one weekend, spent 12 hrs rally watching and got about 10 hrs sleep :o

Went to get some boots for the beemer from cowdenbeath. That car is some kind of motorway cruiser - 120 no probs.
Is the A1 for real? Above Newcastle there must be a speed camera every 2 miles and a 60 mph limit most of the way :?