7th British Classic Rallye

It is a bit of a guesstimate, but the last couple of years, I have been spending about ten hours in the garage for about one of driving on an event or road trip. This year fortunately is quite different. Last week my wife and I took part at the Zoo-Rallye in Cologne with the Morgan. It was a nice scenic drive but not much of a challenge in terms of map plotting. A few months back I signed up as navigator for a much more exciting and difficult event in December – the Le Jog 2023. (more to come on this) To test the compatibility between the driver & myself as well as and my navigations skills – we also enlisted for the 7th British Classic Rallye in Paderborn.

There are many things that differentiate Paderborn from most other classic car rallyes in Germany. First off is that the maps and tasks in the roadbook are a bit like what can be expected at LeJog. With a route of more than 250km and an expected average speed of 38km/h (in the Touring class) – it is also unlike many others. And the passion that Markus – the organizer – puts into this day is on a level far above anything I have attended so far. This creates an atmosphere, which makes it easy for all participants to connect and talk to each other.

Unfortunately, the Mini Cooper we wanted to participate in wasn’t going to be ready. Maggie, my MGB GT was ready. But between signing up and the event, my driver also had to prioritize more important family obligation. As alternative I asked a friend to be driver on my car – but had to cancel earlier this week due to health issues. Nobody in my family was keen or could take over – so I reached out to Frank – the clan lead of MG club of the Highland Games I met earlier this year – via a text message.

A bit to my surprise I received a phone call of his wife Sandra the next day. I also just knew her from the Highland Games – we sat at the same tablet at dinner one evening when we had a long chat with Frank (which as I know now might have been a bit boring for her). She was also enrolled for the event with her sister. She offered to check if someone else might jump in. Desperate I texted a many other people I know but with just four days to the event – logically without success. I was prepared to just take part alone and try driving and navigation (note: with the experience I have now I can clearly say: THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE).

On the last day before the event – Sandra called again. Her sister had some family emergency and could not make it – so we teamed up. When taking part in the British Classic Rallye – I recommend to arrive on Friday late afternoon. The start and finish of rallye is at the Redinger Hof 1887 – a fantastic “Landgasthof” (the translation “country inn” does somehow not really fit the German meaning of the word). From the start it was more like a family & friends meeting. On Saturday we met for a quick breakfast and arrived around 8am at the start. Time seems to fly and with the start number 09 (or was it 60?) we got our roadbook at 8:53 am.

You have 15 minutes to plot as much of the route in your roadbook as you can. Most maps are point-arrow-point style – these are similar to tasks for example at the Cuxland- or Eschweiler Classic I attended. In hindsight even a bit easier or rather a bit more understandable. Nevertheless we (I) made a mistake on the second page already. You always must choose the arrow or dot that allows a shorter route. I should have measured, and we ended up choosing the wrong arrow. I had a bad feeling about the route I plotted on this page right away – luckily, the Gridlines, clocks, compass approach maps that followed were thing I practised quite a bit.

We started at 9:08 in Sandra’s Morgan +8. It only took a few minutes to figure out two things about my pilot. A) she knew how to handle & control a powerful and torque-savvy car like the Morgan and B) meeting or “slightly” overachieving the average speed was her paramount objective. It was clear right away that we will arrive Savely and that I could focus on the maps. Her excellent driving skills got us to the first control a bit ahead of time – giving me extra minutes to work on upcoming sections in the roadbook. When we arrive at lunch break location in Rüthen after three hours, 138km (instead of 142km listed in the roadbook) and 40min ahead of time – we were completely uncertain about our performance.

Where were all the others? Did we skip important parts on the map? What did we miss? I put my head down into the roadbook and started on the second part of the day – 14 pages in total. Sandra also had a good understanding on how to plot the route and helped another team that was obviously overwhelmed with the task. After lunch I was able to double check my plot and we set off on time for part two. The team Sandra helped started directly behind and followed us for a bit – but at some point, we lost them in the rear mirror for unknown reasons 🙂

Even though we were somehow thrown together as team by fate – it became clear in the afternoon that we are a good rallye team. I felt comfortable on the passenger seat the route I plotted – Sandra was more than comfortable driving a Morgan +8 as it was intended when they were built on Pickersleigh Road. When we arrived at the final check point for a regularity test – we again arrived 20min+ early. Next time we get a better stopwatch – it was a bit my fault that we did not exactly land on the second during the last test.

As there where more than 20 teams behind us that all had to do a ~2min regularity – we figured that we have enough time to stop at the hotel, fresh up and change clothes. We still got to the Redinger Hof by 6pm before the last team showed up. While waiting for the results, Sandra and I took the chance to compare our touring to a sports roadbook from another team. A realized that the difference was minimal and found a few remarks and plots in the other roadbook that we both agreed must be wrong.

Yet – at this point I still had no idea which place we might have made. For all we knew we were not going to be last. When Markus the announced the sixth place for a different team – I was hopeful that we will be next. There was a nice couple on a white rubber bumper MGB GT and Max and Erich on the Triumph TR3 that we expected to score high. A few other teams were also much more experienced. Fifth place would be awesome. With every announcement that wasn’t us – my hopes started to crumble little by little. But as soon as Markus started with explaining that the winning team did not even know a few days again that they will be a team – Sandra and I started cheering. We really won first place in the Touring category !!!! What a day and unbelievable turn of events! Looks like we have to defend a trophy next year now 🙂