LEG 1
When the alarm clock rang at 6am I was already awake and in the bath. As car number six our start time was 7:36am. We go to the Land’s End Hotel at about an hour early – enought time for a coffee – I did not really care for breakfast. First up was Test TS 1/1 around the lighthouse at Land’s End. In a test the aim is to go as fast as possible through a defined course marked with cones. In our first test we ended up 3rd in our class – 13 seconds behind the fast team no. 3 in a Lancia Fulvia and another Mini Cooper.
As Navigator you try to identify features on the map with your surroundings. With daylight buildings, bridges, power lines, forests and mainly intersections and small side roads are usually easy to identify. I tend to follow the road we are one with my finger – sometimes with a pencil. Following a recommendation from Graham Raeburn – I always preplotted our route with a pencil just a bit left from the road. This way I know which direction we are going and do not cover map features like Spot Heights – that are important.
When I was confident that my route is correct – I used a green text marker to make my plot more visible. On the first connecting section I looked at additional map instructions we received at start. This made us miss a roundabout. Luckily there was no secret check – otherwise we would have lost the chance for the Blue Riband right away. But this l woke me up. From now on I counted the grid squares we need to go on one street, reset the Brantz, and noted to Martin when he has to remind me to look up.
With every mile we more and more got into a rhythm. After another test we had lunch break at Exceter Racecourse. The regularities and tests on the way to Chepstow – the end of Leg 1 – started getting better.
LEG 2
The long welsh night started. Our timing in regularities improve slightly – as can also be seen when evaluating the resultsbooks. But road conditions became harder and harder. In some sections we had more than 20cm snow. When driving uphill this is not a problem for the Mini. But on descents you can feel that it has more weight on the front and this make controlling the car very hard. Martin did a great job – but in a 90 degree right curve somewhere in Bannau Brycheiniog National Park we slided straight on instead of making the turn.
To our luck we just kissed a hedge. It was a bit like a slow-motion movie. You immediately feel that this manovouer is not going as intended, you see the hedge coming closer and milliseconds become eternity. The sump-guard hit the piled earth beneath the hedge – which stopped us from going through the entire hedge and onto the field behind it. But the entire front of the Mini – all the way to the windscreen was buried in the branches. A slight smell of oil made me fear that this was it – but when we pulled the car out and examined it – the damage was not as bad as we feared. Bumper and the additional rally lights were damaged – the left front wing slightly bend. We lost maybe 3min and on we went.
The biggest challenge is the last TimeControl section. Weather conditions forced the organisers to skip a part and give us detour instruction. The new start was TC 2/4 at a Texaco filling stataion on the A494. Martin was a bit too quick and we arrive 30sec early at TC 2/5. Just while the Marshalls checked us – I noticed smoke just behind my seat and had problems breathing. We pulled over a few feet behind the timing point – and pulled the main power switch cut-off switch. Right behind my seat the wiring for the Brantz and Smith speedo sensors had started melting away. We assume that our crash damaged the sensor or cabling. Apparantly the power for this sensor did not have it’s own fuse and the shortage let the cable melt.
But we were lucky again. The cable thinwall cable from the sensor that burned through was connected to a much beefier cable – which was not damaged yet. I was able to cut it off and put electrical tape around the ends – we were able to continue with 10 mins delay and without a speedo. But our joy was short – just behind the next junction a Triumph 2000 did not make it up the icy road and blocked us. I eventually jumped out of the car and tried to help the team in front – but it took a few attempts until they listened and altered their approach.
In total we were behind 20 min now. If we would not make it to the Main Time Control in Mold within a 30min delay time – our entire Leg 2 results were for nothing. We decided to ditch a few controls on the TC section – knowing that this would cost us the Blue Riband possibility. We found an alternative route – which allowed us to get to the MTC in Mold intime.
When we woke up after just 3,5 hours sleep – we heard that the TimeControl section was taken out of the results – allowing us to keep the eye on the Blue Riband. A few other teams – like the Dutch Mini with number 2 – decidedor could not do continue though.
See more over here on the Hero website
Fixing C6622 
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