Saturday 4th April 2009 Disis Stages at MIRA

Charlie said.... My day at MIRA ..... .. So I’m Charlie, I’m 17 and I was asked by George to co-drive for him at MIRA. Having heard various stories about how much fun and how challenging it was from people like Dan Howell and Andy Baker, I was beginning to get more and more hesitant about the event as it neared, and as the car was finally being pieced back together the nerves built up! It came to the week before MIRA and just to put the icing on the cake I was told I had to be up at 6am! This news did not please me, getting up at 6am, navigating a legendary event, and trying to live up to the standards of former co-driver, Sandy! This was just not my day! So the morning of MIRA had finally arrived, half asleep and stumbling I dragged myself along with my slippers and blanket into the car and set off for the services where George and crew were waiting on us, arriving upon a rather too cheery George made me feel even more asleep, one feels George may just have got a little too much sleep! When we arrived at MIRA we pretty much got in line for scrutineering straight away, but we were sat there for what seemed forever, and having seen my family and friends, who were marshalling on junction 5, drive past about 7 times (obviously lost) it just made the wait seem longer. By the time we had gotten through scrutineering and I had lay on the grass to squeeze into my overalls, which as you can guess were a little snug, we were due at the start line. Not having marked up any of my maps yet I was feeling more than a little nervous, approaching the start line still marking up the map the nerves suddenly dawned on me and the adrenaline really kicked in as the s amber lights counted down. And that moment the green light appeared there was to be no mistakes. After we exited the stage and drove towards our crew I got that increasingly infectious smile take over my face, MIRA truly was a great track and as the day went on we began shaving seconds off our lap times. Me and George really began to get into the swing of things, well at least we thought so, we had no major scrapes although George did like knocking over a certain group of cones we now referred to as his ‘Friends’ Just over half way through now speeding round on stage 6, George was reaching speeds he’d never done before, “90 right, 90 right, curve round to the right into tight hairpin right…or just into a hay bale?” Yep into a hay bale, with all the adrenaline I don’t think I really realised what had happened, we were doing so well and now we had ploughed ourselves into a rather large, now very messed up, hay bale. We managed to take care and finish the stage, disappointed and thinking that that was our rally over for today. We drove down through the service area drawing a lot of attention to ourselves and as we were pulling up to our service area the crew had some very concerned looks on their faces, never the less they all jumped into action immediately when George told them that he had a spare radiator in the van. They all started fixing bits of the front of the car before I had even got my thoughts together and got out of the car, as they started changing radiators and hammering the body back into shape, Sandy kindly helped me out of the car and made me a cup of tea which my shook up self needed. The crew worked like the clappers and sure enough they got the car, minus the bumper, fit and ready to go for the last two stages, I was overjoyed, no hay bale was going to put me off! We went into stage 7, taking a little more care and as we passed junction 5 our marshals went wild, they were obviously surprised to see us flying past them again! And on stage 8 they cheered again for our finish! As we flew through flying finish, me and George cheered, we’d finished, with a few minor bumps and a missing bumper, we had actually finished! We had an eventful day at MIRA, and despite the ‘Hay Bale incident’ I truly had an amazing day with George and it’s a day I’m sure I will never forget J And I’m now looking forward to my next event with George, am I crazy…probably George added many thanks to Sean, Stu, Aron, Geoff and Sandy for fixing the car after the incident to maintain the saxos 100% finish record. Next stop is ........ well watch this space!!!