Forth Bridges Rally Report
Saturday 8th November was a night of many firsts. For four new members of the club, Dan Mandrut, Bhavesh Ramdoyal, Calum Hughes and Andrew Clarkson it was their first ever rally, having only learned about a navigational rally two evenings beforehand. For me, it was my first time competing as a member of EUMSC (apologies to my homeclub VBMC!!), my first Scottish Navigational Rally, my first Plot & Bash and my first night rally (having only previously done 12-cars back home). Another EUMSC member was also competing – Ewan Leeming had led the much appreciated Rally School (with extra guidance from Herve Venries), on the Thursday evening.
The Forth Bridges Rally was an Inter-Association event so there were crews coming from all over Britain to compete for their associations so there were top crews competing. All of us except Ewan were entered into the Novice (C) class – this meant we got the easiest form of clues. Ewan was in the Expert (A) class so he got the hardest form of clues. The rally was split into two halves, the first half had 18 time controls (including an off-road section – tarmacked luckily!), and the second had 16. Our own total mileage was about 200 miles.The first half was south of the Firth of Forth, starting from South Queensferry and finishing not far from the start. We went as far south as J5 of the M8 and as far west as Cumbernauld.
We went through scrutineering (for us to find that a dipped headlight bulb had blown so we rushed off to the garage and finally found one in the second garage we went to! With help from Derek McLean we managed to sort it with plenty of time to spare), signed on and had a competitors briefing whilst enjoying a cup of tea. Those of us in the Novice class had 20 minutes to wait to start after the first car so we watched the first few set off – seeing how the system worked and having a look at the equipment they were using.
During the rally, bouts of torrential rain made seeing out of the window difficult and caused flooding in numerous places. Added to this the fact that Scotland appears to have far many 90 bends (!) and that it was a Plot & Bash (for those of us unused to the format. Basically, you get given the clues for only the route to the next standard time control. Therefore there is no pre-plotting involved) this was a challenging rally for all concerned. It really made us appreciate all the marshals who were stood out in such awful weather doing a grand job. Clues during the event included herring bones, clocktimes, grid square leaving directions, grid boxes to pass through, grid lines, number strings, features to pass, abbreviations, coloured junctions.
The second half started near J4 M9 and seemed a bit easier than the first half – with a few sections containing some main roads. However, it was in this half that we missed our codeboard of the night – a slip up by me not spotting a crafty clue in the instructions. Looking at the results many of the other crews also missed this codeboard – well done to the organisers for catching us out!
In the end we dropped 36 minutes and missed one codeboard (10 minutes) – a total of 46 minutes. This meant we were first in our class (Novice) with our closest rivals, Michael and Josh Davidson, on 81 penalties – this was indeed good competition because Michael and Josh were actually winning at the end of the first half. However, as my dad said at the end, it’s not the position that counts, it’s what you achieve. I fully believe this – personally I was extremely pleased with my own achievement– we got the route almost exactly accurate (just the NAM triangle missed out), I completed my first plot & bash successfully and I really enjoyed it.
The other crews also managed good achievements. Ewan got 5thplace in the Expert class, helping the Association of West of Scotland Motor Sports Clubs to win the Inter-Association trophy.
Calum and Andrew successfully completed their first rally (much bigger than the usual rally for complete novices) with their second half being extremely good.
Dan and Bhavesh attempted their first ever rally and managed to navigate round half of it – a very good achievement for complete novices.
The organisers produced a successful event with no crews managing a clean sweep the winning expert crew, Mike Biss and Cath Woodman, ended with 11 penalties.
