No 43 Crew   Service Crew

Vauxhall Astra GTE 16v Aron Brown Erik West Paul Howell, Jamie Cook, Pete Coley, Martin, Spud.

ATS Coracle Stages Rally – A change of fortune?

Sweet Lamb has been good to me in the past. Winning my class as a co-driver in 96 & 97 and achieving my best result to date as a driver of 5th in class with the Astra. Therefore, after all the non-finishes I had been experiencing recently I was hoping that entering the Coracle Stages would provide me with the change in fortune I needed.

As seems to be the tradition with Sweet Lamb I was again to be navigated by Erik West, which I was hoping was to be another good omen as Erik was my co-driver on our previous successful trip to Sweet Lamb. We also had the professional back up of Paul (WRC mechanic) Howell ably assisted by Jamie, Stu, Pete (yes Pete Coley!), and Martin & Spud.

Stu and myself set of from Sutton around lunchtime on Saturday, with only a slight detour we arrived at Sweet Lamb with plenty of time to scrutineer the car, find the camp site and wait for Paul, Jamie and Pete to arrive. We then settled in at the local pub for a bite to eat and a few “pops”.

Sunday morning dawned bright and early, no rain had been predicted which meant that it was going to be dusty. We meet up with Erik in Sweet Lamb, duly signed on and awaited our start time.

Our tactics for the event had been to take it easy to ensure a finish, however a finish often looked out of the question of the first couple of stages as the Astra seemed to be unbelievably twitchy under braking. Which induced a rather large spin on the downhill section in to the bowl and a “I’ve got, I’ve lost it” moment at the end of SS1 caused a few expletives to be used!

An adjustment of more front brake bias at service proved to cure the problem and our run through SS3 & 4 was much tidier, plus my confidence with Erik and the boys meant I could fully concentrate on driving and aim for a finish.

Stages 6-8 were reverse of 1-4 which meant we would approach the bowel from the east side of the river and attack the yump after the watersplash a lot faster. Which made for some very good action shots!

We then concentrated on keeping the Astra on the island and getting to the end, a puncture on the road section between SS7 & 8 was our only other drama on our way to a finish that has been a long time coming. It felt good to have got the Astra back in to a reliable form, my sincere thanks go to Erik, Paul, Jamie, Stu, Pete, Martin & Spud for all their help and support.