Spring Stages 2006

Sculsthorpe, Norfolk, 9th April 2006

Report by Steve McNulty

The only Thame crew out on the event were Dick Mauger and Steve McNulty.

With a late entry the Monday before the event we were seeded at car 18 for the 6 stage event with a total of 80 miles.
The first 2 stages were 8 miles with no split, and the next 4 stages 17 miles.

Heavy overnight frost had made the surface very slippery and as we were to find out there was a lot of mud on parts of the stage.
The first stage got off to a bad start with an off, sliding on some mud and into a bank. The car would not start for a while and when it did Dick seemed to think something was damaged but off we went, soon to have a second problem and my fault - we wrong- slotted. The marshals stopped us and we turned round and went back on the stage and right 20 meters further up. We finished the stage with a time of 10.42 and in 24th place.

Stage 2 was a repeat of stage 1. They had now covered the corner where we and a lot of other crews had had problems was now covered with cones and a no entry sign. We finished the stage in 9.19 4th fastest and moved up to 9th overall.

Stage 3 17 miles long - a good run and up to 7th overall not too much chance of getting into the top 3 as their times were 30 seconds faster than ours on that stage.

Stage 4 same stage again but the event leader Ray Brammer was parked up with a broken wheel. For some reason we were 5 seconds slower on the second run than the first - there had been a little rain or maybe Dick was getting tired but we still moved up to 4th.

Stage 5 was the almost the same as 3+4 but in the opposite direction. We were 28 seconds off 3rd (which was Steve Tillbrook in his MK 1 Escort and flying - he had done the event last year which definitely helped around the complex section which was quite tricky). There was one surprise on stage 5 - what had been a slow corner running the other way was now a fast straight into a 90 left and just before the corner on the braking point there was a bump which you did not notice on 3 and 4 coming out of the corner. We hit the bump which threw us up in the air the car landed on its nose and Dick had to use all this skill to get it to stop before we hit a building. The car seemed ok and we passed 3 cars on our second lap and just near the end of the stage we could see car 2, the new event leader, parked up the Darrian of Keith Davison so we were up to 3rd.

We had pushed the sump guard back and bent the radiator and fans. With the last stage to go Dick was ready for a steady run over the last 17 miles but I had different ideas and we passed 5 cars including the 2 that started in front of us and set fastest stage time and finished 3rd overall.

So a great recovery after the first stage and with 1500 cones you had to be on your toes finding your way around the stage. The event was almost cancelled 10 days before the event with only 36 entries but 13 late entry’s made it 49 starters.

Steve McNulty