Molly's Blog - 25 August 2011 - Rallye Deutschland

Hi everyone

I am now back at work trying to catch up on everything. So, Rally Germany. What can I say? We were really looking forward to the event. We had completed some testing on tarmac before the event and I was really feeling much more comfortable on tarmac, and had definitely picked up a lot of speed by the time the rally started. But on the very first stage I clipped a corner and bent the rear beam and had to drive the next two stages with one rear wheel pointing in a very different direction to the other one! It was obviously a challenge but extremely disappointing to lose so much time. The guys fixed it during service and all was going well on the next stage until a driveshaft broke on a rough section of tarmac, so Day One was over early for us.

Under WRC super-rally rules we were able to rejoin the field for Day Two, but we were starting from further back in the field and that brought problems of its own.
We were making lots of improvements in our driving but we struggled to get a clean run because we had the problem of catching slower cars in the stages. As a result, I have very mixed emotions about the event. I’m encouraged because we don't have much experience on tarmac and we definitely made improvements but at the same time it was frustrating to not have much on paper. We finished 14th in the WRC Academy field, which means we still have a big gap to make up and only two more events to do it in.

Rallye Deutschland was special for me because my sister, Jane, was over spectating. She has a scholarship to do her Masters in Law at Oxford University, which she begins in a month. That means she will also be living in the UK which is really exciting and I can't wait to have her only a few hours down the road. She is definitely the sensible one of the family!

Once the rally was over, it was time to head back to the UK and the real world!  As soon as the rally de-brief was over, Seb and I were on the road – he drove the recce car and I was in the service van, towing the trailer with our BRC car which we had taken on the long road trip to Estonia, then Finland and now Germany. We left Trier in Germany at lunchtime and didn’t arrive home in Cockermouth until 4am the next day!  It was a long trip and we had a two-hour delay at Calais in France because we thought we were booked on the ferry to England but it turned out we were booked on the cross-channel train and they’re in completely different locations! Plus the service van kept throwing us challenges and we are now long past being amused trying to fix it at 2 o’clock in the morning in the dark parked on the shoulder of the motorway!

At home we grabbed about five hours’ sleep and then had to get up to get the van unpacked and everything sorted out, because I have to take it back across to its owner in Ireland this coming weekend. It seems such a long time ago that we packed it up and headed to Estonia in July.

So, what’s coming up? Well, I’m at work until Tuesday next week and then across to Paris for a meeting of the FIA Women in Motorsport Commission, then back to Manchester and a flight home to Australia!  I'm so looking forward to catching up with family and friends, and I’m also heading to Coffs Harbour to spectate at Rally Australia. I have some media commitments while I’m home, but basically I am going to try and relax as much as I can before heading back to prepare for Rallye de France Alsace which is held on the weekend of September 29-October 2.

I am pleased we had the experience in Germany because the French round is also on tarmac. After that we are back on gravel for the last round of the year, Rally GB in November. I can’t believe how quickly the year is going!

Hope to see you at Rally Oz. Cheers Molly

With my sister Jane at Rallye Deutschland