Molly's Blog - 23 November 2011 - Wales Rally GB

Hi everyone

It's nearly two weeks after Rally GB ended, my apologies for taking so long to get this written.  It's the end of a whirlwind year, and I can’t believe the season over!

Rally GB was a bit of a marathon event in terms of the kilometres we travelled. The event covered the whole of the country of Wales, so on top of all the normal rally stuff, we had to move to different  hotels over the week, and we were living out of the suitcases packed in the recce car as we travelled from one end of Wales to the other. Logistically it was quite an adventure.

I can’t really tell you any of the names of the towns because I can’t pronounce them!  Apparently in Wales, if the name starts with two Ls, it’s pronounced like a C.  Then there are all the Ws and Ys everywhere, with no vowels. It is very confusing!

The first day of recce was quite cold and icy, but then it got warmer and wetter. In a way, while being slippery and wet and muddy isn’t ideal, I almost preferred that to when it was icy because at least you know where it’s slippery, whereas ice is a lot less predictable and can easily catch you out. So I wasn’t too fussed about the weather.

After Scotland, I thought it would be quite exciting, driving on slippery roads again! The event started right in the very north of Wales. The first two stages were two runs up the famous tarmac stage called The Great Orme. Only 4.75km long, it's a stage that runs along a spectacular cliff face beside the ocean.  Unfortunately we were held up by an accident, which meant we ended up starting the stage in the dusk and our second pass was completely dark.  A damp tarmac stage in full gravel set-up, with gravel tyres and everything stone cold.. So we took that fairly steadily, which was always the plan, to get through that and out into the forest.

Stage three was a 15.75 km night stage in the forest and our plan was to attack and see what our pace was like. It didn't go quite to plan when we got a puncture one kilometre into the stage..  We lost a lot of time as we had a problem with the jack and it wouldn’t go down to release the car. There was this mad sequence trying to push the car off the jack, which included me jamming Seb’s fingers in the door (!).

I was encouraged when we saw the splits on the final sectors of the stage, as we were fourth quickest. So it was good to know that even though we weren’t pushing to the maximum because we’d had this problem and didn’t want to take any more risks or do something stupid, that we were able to finish the stage at that pace. So I went to bed disappointed about what had happened, but at the same time pleased to see where we were against the others.

Day Two was probably the day I enjoyed the most, out of the whole rally. Initially we were setting top five stage times, a couple of fourths and then a third fastest  and we were really happy with that.  But the icing on the cake was the day's final 21km stage which we won.  We were so surprised!

I can remember driving it, and the fog was just so thick. Even on a straight you didn’t know if you were pulling slightly to the left or the right because you just didn’t know where you were on the road. In places it was just first gear and driving between the ditches because that’s the only way you could make sure you were on the road!  We also caught  two cars, so we were pleasantly surprised when we saw the result. I do have to give credit to Seb for a fantastic job with the notes in the fog.  Funny thing is that we didn't know we were fastest until about 15km into the next liaison when Seb got phone range and looked up the stage times.  When he told me I didn't believe him!

Day Three probably had the nicest stages in the rally. We had a rear puncture on the third stage, which we drove on, a good challenge on the fast stages! We actually have some in-car footage which I will try to get up on the website, with a few hairy moments! Apart from that we had no dramas and it was a good finish to the rally. I am happy that we were fighting in the top five and while it’s easy to say “what if”, at least we were up there fighting. And if we can do some more work over the winter and come back stronger next year … as long as I can fight in the top five and be capable of winning a stage and then be capable of winning a rally, then it’s all part of the end plan.

It is really interesting to see where we started the year in Portugal, and where we finished in GB, and see the progress we have made. It’s a good contrast. There have been some tough times during the year  where I felt we definitely weren’t where we needed to be, but looking back over the year, we have definitely come a long way. I owe this opportunity to a huge list of people who have made it possible and helped along the way. I am very grateful and plan to elaborate on this in a special blog soon….

Now I’m flat-chat talking to people, trying to find a budget for next year. It's been full on since Rally GB, lots of meetings and trips to London.  Will fill you in on all the fun and games next time.

Cheers Molly