No 56 Crew Service Crew

Peugeot 309 GTi 16v George Cooke Alan West Lawrence Fowler, Chris Rose, Aron Brown

Watch Out For Those Kerbs
or
The Patriot Stages

(round 8 of the Advanced Autosport Technologies Heart of England Championship)

Having missed the three forest rounds, Dukeries (round 5) and Quinton (round 6) due to somebody getting married, the team had hoped to have done round 7 the famous Woodpecker rally, but the driver had not the funds for this challenging forest event. So, here we are in South Wales for round 8 of the Advanced Autosport Technologies Heart of England Championship - The Patriot Stages at Caerwent

I decided I needed to get a finish and valuable points, for both the Heart of England and Streetly Motor Club championships from Caerwent. Caerwent is an old American Airforce bomb dump in South Wales, that has a reputation for good mileage and decent tarmac but a fearsome reputation for kerbs, but it was going to be a new experience for me as in all my years rallying I have never been to this venue before.

Alan, co-Director of Advanced Autosport Technologies (01543 306 681) and series sponsor, again bravely volunteered to sit beside me.

Scrutineering was on the Saturday afternoon at a garage in Newport, not at the venue, so Aron and Lawrence travelled down in the van towing the 309 and Chris and I followed in the Jeep. This all went very successfully with the 309 passing without any problems. Then we all travelled to our bed and breakfast at the Coach and Horses Public House in the small village of Caerwent itself. I insisted on a trip around the Roman walls and guided a tour of roman sites in the town, although Aron opted to hide in the shower (or bar) when he heard the mention of walking.

Evening meal and breakfast was very good and despite the temptations of various young girls running the establishment, it was early to bed for us all. Up for breakfast early and then to meet Alan, Erik and Diana in the Pub car park prior to the five minute drive down to the venue.

Having dropped off the trailer we got set up in service. As our start time approached I became more nervous and on the start line of the first stage feelt very apprehensive.

We successfully negotiated the first mile of the first stage, which had flowing corners with wide tarmac, but as the roads got tighter we appeared to hit every kerb in sight. Our progress was further slowed by a near serious off at the end of a very long straight in which we arrived far too fast and shot through the tape into an escape road.

On returning to service I expected to find at least three broken alloy wheels and damaged suspension. After finishing the stage I radioed the team to warn them of the scale of the devastation I had caused and to get ready to check the car over including front suspension, but all that was damaged was a broken drop link, easily replaced, on the front suspension.

The stages were very hard work for both driver and navigator, the total mileage for each stage was long, 10+ miles per stage, the nature of the stages required constant acceleration and braking through tight sections and it was a very warm day with the sun constantly shinning. This allowed the service crew to sunbath but made it very hard work for the crew inside the car, which always appears to get very hot.

The attrition rate was very high during the day with at least a couple of cars parked up on the side of the road on each stage.

On the second stage I adopted a much steadier pace than on stage one deciding to avoid the kerbs, this proved to be much more successful and we reduced stage one’s time by 24 seconds. The constant accelerating and braking required lots of fuel and the fitting of harder brake pads.

By the end of stage 5 the steering was very difficult to turn and by the time we returned to service for a brief stop the power steering fluid was all gone. We started stage 6, but arrived two minutes late out of service as we had tried to fix a leaking power steering pump (unsuccessfully). It was very hard work trying to steer and due to having to hold onto the steering wheel with all my might It was difficult to let go to change gear, so we dropped more time.

Stage 7, the final stage: a couple of miles into stage 7 I was caught out by a hairpin that I arrived at too fast and due to the power steering, at completely the wrong angle. The car ran off the road and onto some curbs with a load thud and then across the grass. We managed to get back onto the road but within a mile it was obvious that we had a flat front tyre and this mixed with no power steering made it almost impossible to steer. I shouted to Alan that we were going to have to stop and change it. We pulled off the road and as per a well-oiled machine changed the flat tyre but we still only lost probably 3 to 4 minutes!

Final result was a not fantastic! 52nd overall and 15th in class but we did improve on our seeding and did manage to get the car to the end, unlike a large number of others, to gain more championship points

Thanks to the team; Alan for again being foolish and sitting beside me, Lawrence, Chris and Aron for checking there was no damage done by the kerbs, changing brake pads, sunbathing and valiantly struggling to fix the power steering.

The 309's next event is the final round of the Advanced Autosport Technologies Heart of England Championship, Streetly Motor Club's own rally the Tyred Goat stages at Three Sisters, St Helens, near Manchester on Saturday 9th November. As all available manpower will be organising the event, Chris has bravely volunteered to service on his own and a special guest navigator will be taking to the maps and stopwatch for this one.