Over to Crealy Adventure centre for a test on one of their car parks - very loose gravel indeed; Wes did well to keep control throughout. Then the first regularity, plot and bash - a handful of map references with approaches and departs and a single speed change at an Intermediate control. Straight from the end of the first regularity into the second, a few tulips, some YYB junctions, a herringbone and a couple of Avoids - this time two speed changes, the second one being at a defined distance from the start, rather than at a Control. Just one more test, at Bicton (the lunch halt) - this involved circumnavigating a hut in the middle of the road; we had to take two bites at that cherry, but later heard that only one or two cars had actually managed to do it without reversing at least once, hand-braking all the way round.

So at lunch everything seemed OK, with two more regularities next, to be followed by three more tests on our way back to Rally HQ. OK, so the second regularity in the morning had been a bit trickier than the first, but not too bad. We were given the instructions for regularity number 3 at the start control and yes, it was a bit trickier still - tulips, map references and a mixture of spot heights, grid lines and road numbers. Oh, yes, and 5 different speeds which kept me busy just calculating correction factors and applying them both to the speeds and to the distances, let alone plotting, directing, finding the right page, etc, etc.. This one must have been about 15 miles long - and I was certainly pleased to get to the end of it. I thought that surely the fourth and final regularity would be more relaxing - poor, deluded fool that I am. At its start we were given two sheets of paper, the first one with a load of alphabetically labelled boxes, containing variously tulips, BYBs, herringbones, spot heights, characters, words and phrases such as "Go under Black". The instructions at the top said to visit in reverse alphabetical order - and of course they were laid out in the order z, y, x, w, v, u, just to go you into the swing of it so you'd forget about the alphabetical ordering bit, wouldn't you ? You guessed it, it then went q, p, o, t, s, r, m, n, l, k, j, i. Of course, while I was busy getting all that onto the map, did I think to even glance at the second sheet ? Not me. That sheet contained further navigation, which I didn't need yet - a few map references, some compass directions for departing junctions - and some for approaches as well (there's tricky !), herringbones, clock-faces and Overs/Unders (don't forget that if you're going through a ford, it will count as an Under) - you name it, it was there. And down at the bottom of the sheet, instructions to change speeds - ten, yes ten, different speeds, sometimes at a specified distance from the start of the regularity, sometimes from the last Intermediate. And I'd already missed the first couple of changes while plotting the first page. And somehow somewhere I'd reset my trip so I didn't even know how far it was from the start. Wow. Oh yes, and code boards to catch as well, of course - the whole section being something over 40 miles long. I reckon whoever set that little lot probably eats babies.