Carfax Stages 2002

Longcross - 1st December 2002

Report by Peter Wood.

This annual feature event had attracted a strong field of 70 cars, including 10 4WD – A 6R4, 4 Subarus, an Evo 5, Toyota GT4 and 3 Escort Cossies, but the field was lead by Tim Ball’s Darrian T90.

Thame had two entries for this, both in the 1600 cc class, which was pretty competitive with 16 entries:

	Andy Corner and Erik West in the all-conquering Peugeot 205.
	Simon Clark and Alan West in the Alfasud.

Servicing were Henry Whitfield, Julz Coulter and Peter Wood from the Club plus erstwhile member Big Eddie and his brother.

There had been little time in the run-up to the event to prepare the cars, and Andy had managed six hours only on both on the previous day, so fingers crossed!

Pre-start the heavens opened and so SS1 was full wets and standing water.

Disaster for Simon – the intercom failed just before the off, and despite Alan’s shouted instruction Simon followed a Peugeot through the wrong entry at split – maximum! SS2 was little better, with the car pulling hard to the Left – another front disc had parted with its centre (a repeat of Oakington). This was soon fixed, but on SS4 BOTH front discs parted company and game over.

Andy and Erik started well, setting 11th fastest on SS1, 3rd in class but 16s off the class lead. Andy complained of loss of 2nd gear at bottom of hill, but it came back after a mile or so, costing time. Service crew were busy under the bonnet, adjusting the gear linkage.

SS2 and 8s quicker, but dropping down to 13th overall and 5th in class (very tight, only 8s behind 2nd in class and 8th overall) and problem with 2nd gear getting worse. Julz tries wedging an engine mount to reduce movement, and this shows a little improvement.

SS3 and still missing 2nd gear, but back to 12th overall, 5th in class. In service we spot a shiny spot on the exhaust – in the extreme of the hill it is too close to gear selector and blocking 2nd – soon fixed and now fully into battle.

Rest of day playing catch-up, and with no further problems climbed to 9th overall and 3rd in class in the afternoon sunshine.

A good event, marred by OMC applying 34 time penalties for early/late into passage control, and again they had waits of 10+ minutes to get into Service after every stage. This is really silly when you have a red-hot engine and limited Service time.

Good news on the venue - it looks like Longcross is OK for 2 more years.