Powderham Rally Report

I Lived in Devon for just over 10 years prior to moving to Cheshire, which was how it came about that I was asked to navigate on the Powderham Historic Rally of Devon. It was Andy Gibson who asked me as he thought some local Knowledge would be useful. He was destined to go there in his capacity as championship co-ordinator for the Historic Rally Car Register and thought it would be fun to do the rally. I did explain that I had absolutely no idea what historic rallying was all about, especially regularity sections, but as he has co driven for me on several stage rallies it seemed only fair that he should get his chance to scare me for a change.

The rally was over the weekend of 9^th/10^th March, starting with scrutineering on the Friday evening, which Andy's MGB GT went through without a hitch. Then we set off to set the (mechanical) Halda over the organisers measured mile. For the benefit of younger readers these have to be calibrated by changing the gears inside.

After a rather late night we started at 9.30 on Saturday with a drivers briefing, followed by the first of the special tests, straight from the start in the grounds of Powderham Castle. There were then two more special tests in the castle grounds, followed by several other tests, linked by road sections. This made for an event which was a cross between a stage rally with simple autotests on a variety of surfaces. Fortunately Andy has done a lot of autotests and so despite no LSD, we managed to post some very respectable times. Our only 'mechanical' problem occurred on test 4, which was more like a special stage, but rougher, and we pulled the exhaust off. Fortunately the test finish was right next to the garage which had played host to scrutineering the previous evening and they were extremely helpful, getting the car up on the ramp and welding the exhaust back on in a time most service crews would be proud of.

The run into the lunch halt finished with 2 regularity sections, the route for which had been handed out at the start, giving us navigators time to plot the route before we got there. Both were fairly short and due to an error by the organisers, the distances and times were displayed at the start of each section instead of the finish. Thus if you knew what you were doing, which Andy did (and I admit I had had absolutely no idea) it was easy.

Following Lunch there were 2 more regularity's, but with the route handed out as you started them. This time they were significantly longer and involved both several changes in average speed together with some fairly devious navigation. It all got very busy in the car, but we got most of it with Andy concentrating on the speed/distance calculations whilst I plotted the route. This was followed by some more special tests before a four-hour rest halt.

Next up was where the local knowledge came into play. A 2-hour road rally with the entire route handed out 45 minutes before the start. I was not looking forward to this as I expected some more devious navigation, but was pleasantly surprised to find it was all map refs, although you did have to watch the approach/depart directions. A few crews cleaned this part, but we did better than I thought we would, dropping just 3 minutes, over a very compact and varied route to the SW of Exeter.

The results were soon posted showing us 10^th overall and first in class, which I was quite pleased with for my first historic and my first road rally since the seventies. We would have done better but for a couple of plotting errors, which dropped us a couple of missed code boards. I must say however, I'm still not sure what regularity sections are all about. Motorsport where you don't drive absolutely flat out will always seem alien to me.

THE OLD GITS CHANGE SIDES