Molly's Blog - 9th April 2011

Hi everyone

At last! A bit of time to catch up.  I will apologise in advance for the length of this blog, but this is all true and did actually happen ...

As you know, we had a pretty crazy and up-and-down lead-up to Portugal. It was incredibly exciting to have my first WRC round within reach, but as equally daunting!

We had put a lot of effort into the time leading up to the event in order to fit in as much practice as possible. The plan was to take our green Fiesta to Portugal to complete a pre-event test as a shakedown in similar conditions to what we would face in the rally. This was made possible with Autotek Motorsport being kind enough to transport our car out there. I organised for Mark Higgins to come to Portugal for the test day for some further tuition. Danny, who works with us on the British rounds, also agreed to fly out to the rally early to help look after the car.  So as you can imagine a lot of time, money and resources were invested in having the best preparation leading into the first WRC Academy round!

The first hiccup (of what would soon become many) occurred when the van from Autotek (which was at M-Sport picking up parts) left before I had the chance to load Danny's tools, which were to go to the rally on their transporter. Because Danny would be flying out, we needed to get his equipment on the truck otherwise it had no way of getting there.  This was at 8am on a Wednesday morning. Luckily Bec was around and jumped in the car and proceeded to ‘chase' the truck down the road. This turned out to be a bit of a mission, given the truck's route was local back roads with little phone reception.  It took a few hours before she caught up and finally we had the tools loaded and en route to Portugal.

At least everything was in the right place and all the logistics had been sorted and confirmed. We thought we could now relax and focus on the rally. We had arranged to head out a day early to give us some downtime before the action started. Our flight was out of London (Gatwick), about five-and-a-half hours' drive from home. We left early to allow a comfortable run down the motorway and you can guess what happened next ...

After about nine hours and various delays from traffic accidents on every motorway we seemed to get on, we missed our flight by five minutes!! Our best begging and pleading did no good. We were then told we had to wait until our flight had left and then transfer to the next one - 6.45 the next morning! We were a bit depressed and frustrated, and organised a hotel for the night at the airport whilst we waited to change flights.  At the time we were told there were only two seats left on the morning flight. Yes, you guessed it: 20 minutes later these were no longer available!

The only way we could get any seats would be to book completely new flights as apparently they can ‘oversell' on the internet bookings. Not great news for the budget, but at least we would get to Portugal.

We were up extra early to get our tickets and make sure we were on that flight to Portugal. Then it was delayed by around three hours. But at least we had tickets! It was such a relief to finally make it to Portugal and the sunny weather was very welcome.

Our frustration was now replaced with excitement that we were actually here. We set out to find our hire car, which was booked through a small local company. An hour later, after searching through the terminal and every car park many times, we managed to find it...

Well, a lady sitting at a coffee shop with the company name written on a piece of paper, along with a pen and an EFTPOS machine! Anyway, we now had keys to our ‘VW Golf' so we were happy, except that our ‘VW Golf' turned out to be a tiny Mitsubishi Colt, with no spare tyres. This was going to be interesting as this was to be our recce car for two days on the rough Portugal stages.

Anyway, no time to worry about that. We headed to the hotel, checked in, then went to the service park to meet up with the Autotek guys and make a plan for the test the following day. I was really looking forward to the test and having the opportunity to spend a day with Mark on some fast and grippy roads.

The test road was a six-kilometre loop, representative of the rally with lots of blind crests. After a recce run, we jumped in to warm everything up and then, only three kilometres up the road, the engine temperature light flashed on ...

I couldn't believe it - all the work and logistics to not only arrange this test, but also after all the engine dramas we had previously dealt with at our test in the UK. This wasn't what we needed! The good news was that it turned out to be only the alternator belt, which had come to pieces. The bad news was that we were in the middle of nowhere with no spare parts!

After five hours and a lot of phone calls and driving around we had a belt from a local Portuguese mechanic, thanks to the help of the test coordinator Jose and his long list of contacts. So, by lunch time we were back in the game! We made the most of the afternoon and tried to get in as many kilometres as possible. After spending some time with Mark and playing with the set-up, Bec jumped back in to have a run.

Wait for it. After a couple of kilometres, the car stopped in the middle of the stage. We were now stuck in the middle of the road with no recovery vehicle. Using our trusty Colt hire car, we got a friendly ‘push' up the hill back to the service area. The fuel pump had failed, which would put an end to any more testing we had planned. Luckily there was a bunch of really helpful road closure guys who offered to tow the car back to one of their garages 10km down the road. And we did have to have a quick stop at a local pub on the way!

Meanwhile, our next priority was to work out what we were going to do about our recce car situation. We had been speaking with the marshals (also local rally guys) about our recce car and spare tyre dilemma.  Jose suggested we drop by one of their sheds where we could search through his selection of rims and old rally tyres and see if we could find anything to fit as spares. So we dropped the broken rally car off, and then followed Jose back to the main town, Faro, and to their garage. By this stage it was getting fairly late after what had been a long and hectic day and we were all a bit tired and hungry!  Unfortunately we couldn't find any rims to fit the Colt as apparently the common stud pattern with this car was from the 80s Hondas etc!

We finally sat down to dinner at around 9pm to go over our options. We were originally hoping to have another run in the car at the ‘P3' test, but our long job list soon put a halt to these plans. We now just had to focus on the recce and rally. Oh and recovering the rally car from a local garage somewhere up the road!

First thing the next morning we headed out to pick up the rally car. We had no trailer or tow vehicle, so our only option was to flat tow the car with the Colt back to Faro (about 50km). We also had to avoid the motorway, so this meant we had to go on the smaller roads and through the towns.  Our biggest concern was if we had to stop on a hill would the Colt actually be able to take the weight of the rally car?  There were some interesting roundabout encounters but we made it to downtown Faro and we were not far from the service park.

Then the Portuguese police caught a glimpse of what we were doing and we were quickly stopped at a busy roundabout in the middle of town. Literally, in the roundabout! Great, we were now stuck in the middle of town with no way to get the car back to service. There were many broken English conversations and phone calls and then we left Danny with the rally car while we drove to the service park to try and find some way of recovering the car. We ended up talking with some more marshals, who as it turned out had a mate with a tow truck. It would cost 50 Euros but at least we had a way to get the car back.

By now it was lunchtime and our next mission was to sort out the recce car. By chance a guy from the local Ford dealer had driven past the broken-down rally car in the roundabout, and he stopped for a chat and dropped his business card with Danny. We decided it couldn't hurt to give them a call to see if we could organise something. Five hours later and after a tour of every local hire car company (some of who tried to make us leave a 1500 Euro deposit with them!) we managed to get hold of a Focus with spares for two days.

During this time we had also tried to get a fuel pump from the local dealer, but if we wanted one out here, it would have to come from Spain.

By this time it was getting on for 7pm and we had to get ready for sign-on and our pre-recce Academy briefing. The Briefing went for two-and-a-half hours and by then we were so in need of food and sleep and some time to actually think about the rally.

There were three stages to recce on Tuesday. The first two were done before lunch and then we headed back into the service park to check seat positions, fit extra stickers etc to our Academy car.  We then headed back out to the forest to recce the third stage, which opened later that afternoon.  Following recce, we had to take our gear through scrutineering and it was here that I found out the FIA homologation tag was no longer on my HANS device. So now at 8pm, I needed to find a HANS device from somewhere! Back to the hotel and lots of phone calls and I found a replacement that I could collect in the morning. Time for bed!

Wednesday was recce of another three stages and then straight to shakedown for the first drive of our Academy car. The tyres we used for the test would be part of our allocation of 18 for the whole rally, so our plan was to only do a couple of runs to get a feel for the car, and then save the tyres for the rally. It was good to get a few miles in the car and settle the nerves a bit!

There was no time to relax. After the test we had to hurry back to Faro to return the Focus recce car. Of course we were running late and, to top it all off, we were greeted with a 250 Euro fine for a damaged lock. Someone had tried to break into the car overnight. We weren't sure how much more we could take by this point! We were glad, however, that whoever had tried to break in was unsuccessful as one of the other guys had all their helmets, suits etc stolen from the same place the previous night.

At last the rally was about to start!

It was a super early start and we all boarded our Academy coach headed for Lisbon, where the event's super special stage would be held. There was so much excitement on the bus and the atmosphere at Lisbon for the start and the super special stage was unreal. It felt pretty crazy to actually be a part of it all. We recce'd the Super Special Stage in golf buggies, which was also a bit of fun. After some media interviews etc we assembled for the parade lap. Each crew had their own car to be driven around in - except us! They had forgotten to make name signs for us and organise a car, so instead we had to jump on the lead car at the last minute and try and hang on!

I can't say I wasn't nervous to start the rally in front of such a massive audience, but it was actually a great buzz and we were eager to get ready for the proper forest stages to start at last. J

Given the amount that we had fitted into the past week, I was actually quite relaxed on Friday morning. It seemed that Bec and I could now handle anything.

We were encouraged by our pace on Friday. We had some good split times and also knew where we could improve.  The stages were cresty and technical so committing to the notes was very important and Bec and I were really enjoying getting some good miles together under our belt and finding our rhythm.

Unfortunately, on the last stage of the day we got caught out in a rough section and the car bounced out of a rut and clipped a rock with the rear, which tripped us over. Luckily we were pushed back on our wheels by some spectators, but driving the rest of the stage with a smashed windscreen and no visibility was a challenge. Back at service the boys did a fantastic job to get everything patched up in our 45-minute evening service.

Saturday was quite tough for me. It was harder than I thought to bounce back and we struggled a bit with our pace in the opening loop. The car wasn't handling perfectly and the repeat runs of the stages were incredibly rough and Bec and I focussed on keeping it together and getting the car to the finish. Given the amount of carnage out there, we were relieved and excited when we crossed the finish on the last stage!

The whole experience was unlike anything we have ever experienced before and a jump in the deep end, to say the least.  Through all the trials and tribulations during the lead-up to the event and the rally itself, it really was an event we will never forget. It is also really encouraging to take some positives away and lots of ideas on how we can improve for the next one.

I would like to thank all of the organisers, officials, Autotek, Danny, service crew and everyone who helped us get through the week. There is no way it would have been possible without them all.