PEDLEY RALLYING

Our second event of the year was one of our favourite venues, MIRA, home of Quinton Motor Club's Horiba D'Isis Stages and for the first time John and Chris had made the trip in the Honda Civic Type R.

The competition in our class was basically unknown, but with two class A cars ahead of us we knew we would have a good battle on our hands. Stage one was just a case of refamiliarising ourselves with the venue and finding the levels of grip on a damp circuit. About halfway round the stage we saw John and Chris parked up, yet more gearbox troubles for the Honda. We recorded a time of 7.02 which saw us in 24th place and second in class behind car 29 the Nova of Andy Okane who set an incredible time of 6.40 and was in 11th place. Third in class was car 28, the Escort of Richard Davies just two seconds behind us. That immediately threw down the gauntlet and that we would have to be at the very top of our game if we were to stay in the hunt for the class awards. 

Stage two saw Chris respond to Andy Okane's first stage pace by beating him by 5 seconds and our own previous time by an amazing 22 seconds, this reduced the gap to 17 seconds, but realising that we did have the pace to be competitive. Stage 3 was a first run over the infield section, and as we approached that part of the stage, we past Andy Okane parked at the side of the road, obviously retired and handed us the class lead. A time of 7.50 was 6 seconds quicker than the Escort of Richard Davies, giving us a class lead of 8 seconds, with the rest of class challengers falling behind. The second run through the infield layout saw us go quicker again, shaving 6 seconds off our previous time and taking another four seconds off Richard. During the dinner break, the heavens opened and it rain heavily for twenty minutes, before the sun came out again, leaving the tyre choice as a complete lottery. Chris opted to stay on the Dunlop slicks, while Richard made a hasty change onto full wets, the latter proving to be the better option as Richard recorded a time four seconds quicker than us to reduce the gap back to eight. As the conditions continued to dry out, Chris became happier that he could hold off Richard's challenge over the next three stages. A measured drive on stage six saw us hand another second back to Richard, but happy that we could maintain a seven second advantage to the end of the rally.

Stage seven started well in the same vein as the previous six, but as we rounded a tight hairpin left Chris went for first gear and found nothing, the gearbox had cried enough and ground to a halt. The silence in the car was deafening, no words could express how we both felt at that moment. We were out of the rally and our best ever result had been snatched away. The gearbox curse of MIRA had struck again, but unlike last year we were unable to make it to the finish, although our performance earlier in the day had proved what a team Chris and the Swift are.