Early Winter Rally Report
The day starts with me going over the classic rally guide clue types, which later on still need some on the move explanations, thanks in part to having no code sheet 1 and being in non-expert class on my 2nd nav. rally as navigator. The first code sheet with the first 7 checkpoint locations would have been quite useful, as the clue to get from TC4 to TC 5 stops some 2 miles away from the TC, and was only found due to some darting about by Ewan.
We swam on for a bit longer through the crater lakes on the road looking for map triangles which someone had clearly stolen, and as such after some checking we had 12 points removed from our final total. Again we had to search down the road for TC6 not knowing exactly where it was, but this time there was only one road it could be on. As for getting the next clue we had no idea where we were starting from, as the road all looked the same, but we got to the next 2 time controls and onto code sheet 2.
We trudge through ever increasing seas and rounding bends with Ewan constantly asking if I could let him know where the 90s are, but the reminders didn’t always come leaving Ewan and his poor Yaris needing 4 corrections to get round a bend. Going on a bit more leads to some more NAM triangle hunting through muddy farms some of which lead to triangles while others just lead to “You better hope we don’t get stuck” from the driver.
Then come the Jim Clark stages where Ewan points out the holes in the hedges that he has co-created in the past explaining why he likes to know in particular when there’s a 90 degree bend coming up. Going along the Jim Clark and the following 4 minute stage I try to give some more directions but Ewan simply replies, “It’s ok I got it” which was just as well as I was trying to send him off up the wrong road.
After the night of boating, finding stolen and moved NAM triangles, along with guessing where a third of the Time Controls were in Non expert class, when I should still have been in Novice – we make it to the end to find out we picked up 141 penalty points. However thanks to the pure, mad, mentalness of missing out a TC we are the only non expert crew that have made it to the end and not gone over the time limit making us winners of the 12 car non-expert class by default. All in all a fantastic night.
