The Rockingham Stages 2005A joint promotion by Thame Motorsport Club and Middlesex County Automobile Club Report by Pete Wood – Chairman of the organising Committee
Building on the successful co-promote with MCAC from last year we decided to go for bigger and better in 2005. Various ideas were tossed around, but we decided on a 2 day event, with a late lunch start on Saturday (including the successful dark stages). Curfew is at 18:00 on Saturday. The plan had been to organise some sort of evening bash in the BMW suite (music, bar, food) and restart at 10:00 and run to something like 16:20 on the Sunday. Entry was increased from 70 to 100, which was pretty ambitious, as the Tempest has some 70+ starters, and plenty of Single Venues were struggling to get much more than 45. The October S/V at Rockingham had less than 50 starters.
Special praise here for James Walters and Andrew Cadle who kept competitors interest in the event by constant updates on the Rally UK website chat-lines, and the best Website for a Single Venue I have ever seen. We attracted a very strong entry list, with over ¼ of the field 4WD, plus 6 Darrians and a selection of other interesting motors, including 2 Quattro’s, 2 M3’s etc. During the planning phase we became aware of development plans for the surrounding area of Rockingham, with 4,500 houses planned by the nice Mr. Prestcott, and an unnamed Irish builder. The Circuit manager left in the run-up to the event along with a number of other contacts we had, making planning difficult.
Poor old James must have tried a dozen times to negotiate and book the BMW suite for the function. In the end we were denied the opportunity to run the evening event. We were given various reasons – firstly they tried to charge us over £3k (!), which we negotiated down to £1k + £500 for security + VAT; Still a lot of money, but we agreed in the end. Then they changed their minds and said we couldn’t have the room, with either that they had no time to clean it after an event on the Friday night, or concerns about their liability if someone crashes after imbibing too much on their licensed premises. Signing-on was threatened to be in the Porta-cabin near the Service area (which became the results hut), but James was sure that he and the lady sign-on crew weren’t having that in December! So with some silver tongued talk from James we were able to use the Media centre, which in many ways was superior to the BMW suite anyway! Peter Nathan of MCAC had a great idea of how to attract marshals to a 3-day event – he had negotiated with the local Scout Group to hire their heated, carpeted, dormitory for the use of the Marshals, including a Full English Breakfast, juice, toast etc. free to them (at £8 a head to the organisers). The feedback from the marshals was great, and it would certainly be useful to do this again if we run the same format. Marshalling was certainly a problem, and Eddie said he had something like 40+ marshals on the Saturday, but boosted to 60 on the Sunday, and this was after a huge effort for marshalling crew to ring around for support (a problem so close to Christmas?).
Stage diagrams were duly submitted to the MSA, and then Andy Greenland and Tony Phillips arranged a final site visit about 1 month before the event. The first thing they found was that the Start from last year was now in the middle of a huge building site, with huge earth movers, cranes, etc. working flat out! New plans were submitted moving the start forward to opposite the Admin building, costing us about 6 miles of stages in total. The new triple lappers for SS9+10 were approved, which split either side of the lake. The organisers decided to run two Charity entries (1 each) such that we offered a free place. Neal Cuss was our entry with Nick Shires co-driving. Nick had won the auction at the NACC, bidding £450 to the good cause. The Club provided membership, Licence, hotel, and even the use of my race suit! (Yes, I know, plenty of space in there!). On the day we achieved the first objective – car 1 starts on time- to the minute! Then the 6R4 (car 15) hits the Mini (car 24) and the stage is stopped! It takes over 20 minutes to get the lady co-driver out of the Metro, but luckily the X-ray in hospital found no breaks. SS2-4 run fine and we close for the night. Reverse direction on SS5-8, but we lose a Darrian over the Armco after the tunnel, and the Opening car also goes off. We decide to shorten the Stage to avoid the slippy corner, but lose some time setting this up. We still managed to run the 10th stage, and we were only 6 minutes over the 17:00 first curfew. We also ran a Trophy rally for anyone who broke down on day 1 but could fix the car. This proved quite successful, with an additional 7 entries to boost the 69 that made the restart. We had 53 finishers, plus 3 from the Trophy rally.
All in all we were very happy with the event, and you have to expect at least 1 stage accident when you have very fast cars and slippery conditions. Next year? Wait and see. Club entries on the event:
Car 16 Dick and Steve. Dick’s first run here, but Steve co-promoted the SV here in October. A steady start with 17th on SS2. Steadily improved throughout the weekend to finish a creditable 11th overall and take 2nd in class 5. Well done!
Car 20. Andy and James. Frantic preparations for the event – a gearbox change at 04:30 meant that they started with a standard box and no LSD! A 9:12 on SS2 (same as Richard Upton, who finished 9th overall) saw them at 18th overall and 6th in class. They battled on through the dark stages, and refitted the rebuilt gearbox (with LSD) before 18:30. Restarted the next day in high hopes, but came into service after SS8 to find that the Vernier pulley had broken into three pieces – luckily engine is fine. Next out on Jan 2nd at the Loco stages as car 1 (outright win here last year).
Car 36. Richard and Paul. The car has had some more work on it, and doesn’t breathe fire like last year (Shame!). In a tougher class than usual (13) with a pair of M3’s, 3ltr Clio. Darrian, 205 RWD 2.5ltr (!) they had their work cut out. Richard drove really well on both days, very neat and tidy and lots of lovely power slides! He was only beaten in class by a 4ltr M3 (360BHP!) and Dave Allmark Mk11 (seeded 7th), so no shame in that and in fact followed the BMW home at an excellent 9th Overall and 3rd in class.
Car 38. Neal and Nick. Nick’s first event since co-driving on road rallies in the ‘80’s. Neal as ever drove a neat and fast event, having scrubbed a set of brand-new wets on SS2! Was set for a solid 12th overall, when a shaft broke on SS10 and they crawled round, dropping 6 ½ minutes, so 27th overall and 3rd in class.
Car 50. Simon and Ian. Car now re-fettled and with 200bhp on tap looking for a good event here. Had a good SS2 9:33, but throttle linkage broke on SS3, so entered the Trophy Rally on Sunday. They set 3rd quickest on SS5-9 but retired when oil pressure dropped, to preserve engine. Simon and Emma are off on the Plymouth – Banjou charity event in a left hooker BMW 2.4 in December – we look forward to their report on the epic 24 day journey through Africa.
Car 79. Nathan and Steve. The Golf had enjoyed much love and attention from Brother Duncan in the last few weeks, and had shed a few pounds as well. The crew were well up for it, and started well but were soon in trouble, with what Nathan thought was big end rattle (very nasty!). Duncan was not so sure, and convinced them to to take the head off and have a look. Sure enough a blown head gasket. They searched the local area and whizzed off to locate said article. Soon refitted and they entered the Trophy event. This was only the start as soon started to lose gears, then gearbox split, pouring oil everywhere! A nappy was constructed and they made the finish and quite rightly awarded the Spirit of the Rally Trophy.
Car 97. Brian and Amanda. They enjoyed the event very much last year (even though the Scrutineer gave them a hard time), and were back for more. Amanda is always smiling, and is volunteering to be the Club Secretary in 2006. They were given a Stage Target on SS3 (I guess they broke down) and also rejoined on the Sunday for the Trophy. By my calculations they beat Nathan in the Trophy, so finished 2nd last this time. Many thanks for all your help in putting this event together!! Pete Wood Home | News / Info | Calendar | Event Reports | Photo Gallery | Rally Teams | Contacts | Links - Updated Sunday, 24 February, 2008 |
