Last modified: 14/07/2002

No 102 Crew Service Crew

Peugeot 309 GTi 16v George Cooke Aron Brown Lawrence Fowler / Andrew Mitchell

A late morning start (for a change) as the Historic Rally Cars were running first on the road, allowed us to get up and enjoy breakfast at a reasonable time.

We got the team together and traveled down to the start venue at Theatre Hafren, just outside Newtown. As Management Cars were not allowed, Lawrence and Andy were on main servicing duties.

Stage 2, Hafren 2: Nearly had serious accident as Aron lent across to gesticulate at Erik (ex service crew member) who was marshalling with new girl friend, resulting in drivers inability to take fast right-hand bend.

Stage 3, Sweet Lamb: Disconcerted to find that the start line, high on a hillside, was completely shrouded in mist. Despite using headlights and fog lights, the crew opted not to risk falling off any of Sweet Lambs notorious cliffs and decided to crawl through the stage. However, were obviously not crawling that slowly as they rapidly came upon (and nearly crashed into the back of) a white Vauxhall Nova crawling slower than them in the fog.

Once down into the valley the mist cleared so we were able to give it some right foot on the tarmac road section.

Then to first service. Single service meant that we had lots of work to do. Whilst Aron cooked bacon sandwiches in the van, we swapped tyres, and adjusted the front suspension. All the service crew were wearing their new Team Oranje bobble hats (thanks to Lawrence’s Mother for knitting these merchandising winners).

Stage 4, Hafren 1: Started to experience braking problems throughout this stage. The handbrake was failing to lock the rear wheels and slowly we started to lose all rear braking. With a long stage and no emergency service, the brake bias was wound to the front to try to ease the situation...

Stage 5, Hafren 2:
...by stage five, the brake pedal traveled to the floor without slowing the car at all, resulting in some precarious maneuvering at tight corners. On the road section between SS5 and SS6, we came upon a little old lady in a little old Metro on a single-track road. Whilst trying to maneuver the rally car into a passing place, the engine stalled and wouldn’t restart. Time Passes… Without a management car to lend assistance, the crew became more and more frantic. Eventually the car fired up, and we rushed to stage six loosing one minute of road timing.

Stage 6, Sweet Lamb 2: The mist had cleared, exposing frightening drops and mixed with a lack of brakes resulted in entertainment to the end of the stage, but at least we achieved our aims of finishing without major incident.