After our attempt at the awesome mid Wales stages of the RallyNuts Rally in a Mk2 Escort back in April, Neil decided he wanted another go at the Yorkshire forests. Following the difficulties we had on the Malton Rally in November 2022, Neil secured a favourable deal back with WB Motorsport to use their newly built Mini Cooper S on the Trackrod Forest Stages on the 23rd September 2023.
So after booking accommodation and practicing the notes a fair few times during the weeks before, it was off to Filey to meet up with Neil and Ben from WB who was providing another car as well as ours for someone to do the Mini Challenge part of the event. The new car had only done one previous event at Anglesey and it was beautifully put together with a full race engine, Proflex suspension, weld in cage and better facilities inside for driver and co-driver. It also made a ‘proper’ noise but that did get a little close to the limit at the Noise Check before scrutineering.
After (eventually) getting through the long queues for Scrutineering we retired to our accommodation, went out for some food and then went through the notes and videos before getting some kip.
Our due start time on Saturday was 08:58 which meant it was another early alarm call to give us sufficient time to get prepared and off to NY500 at Pickering for the official Start. We were forth car on the road this time and the first stage for us was Stage 2 in Gale Rigg. Stage 1 was the Dalby stage that ran on the proceeding Friday night as part of the Trackrod Rally Yorkshire and included the Mini Challenge. In fact the other car supplied by WB Motorsport did actually go off on the night stage in quite a big way so they didn’t get the chance to drive the rest of the stages.
The car was superb on the first run through Gale Rigg with a great amount of power that pulled out of the corners so much better than the Mini Challenge cars we had used previously. It was a noisy little thing as well with plenty of pops and bangs on overrun. The new suspension made it very stable which gave Neil much more confidence in where to place the car on the road. Gale Rigg was also the first time I felt happy with my note calling and it felt as though we had set a really good time at the end. I really enjoyed that first stage.
It was a short 15 minute road section to Stage 3 in Cropton. Most of the road route was forestry roads so we kept our helmets on (but don’t tell anybody). The stage was virtually identical route to the same stage on the Malton in 2022 and again we achieved a really good run through. We did start to detect a hot clutch odour as we neared the end of the stage but we didn’t think much of it. The stage stop line was a disaster. The two marshals did not receive a finish time for us from the flying finish clock and we sat there waiting for nearly 5 minutes before they approached the car by which time there was another 4 cars parked behind us. Eventually they came to the car and I tried to persuade them to just give a time one minute after the previous car because I knew the flying finish clock will have stored the correct time but I just needed something to work out my next due time. They were reluctant to do that but I think that was because they didn’t understand what I was saying and thought I was trying to cheat. Eventually they gave me a time on my time card which by the watch on my wrist was two minutes slower than we actually achieved but they did write a comment of the bottom of the card about the difficulties.
So off we set to Stage 4 in Staindale were we bumped into Tony Jones who told me the problems at Cropton stop line had been the result of the Safety Delegate moving the flying finish causing its connection to the stop line to be intermittent and it didn’t only affect us.
Three mile into Staindale and we started to get the hot clutch odour again but this time it got worse to the point of smoke entering the car. As we approach post 8, a square right, Neil complained of a loss of drive and went through every gear in the box until he got something. However, on the short uphill section to post 9 it cried enough and we had no drive at all so rather than try and crawl through the remaining 2.3 mile of the stage and baulk following competitors, we parked it with the marshals cars at post 9.
We phoned Ben about our demise and waited for recovery at the end of the stage which was quite a while. Luckily we had our sandwiches in the car (up here for thinking, down there for dancing !) together with a bag of fruit pastilles for pudding and something to drink so we were OK.
Once the closing car arrived we handed in our Damage Dec, started the car and it drove out of the stage with no problem. Annoying but it was obviously an overheating issue with the clutch and it certainly would not have lasted another three stages.
So that was our first retirement on a stage rally since 1979 (I think) when we had a mini engine seize up on the Hibaldstowe airfield stage the Norking Aluminium Stages Rally so its not bad if you ignore the 40 year gap.
It was such a shame because we were both enjoying the car and I was enjoying calling the notes better than I had ever done before. We were especially looking forward to the 12 mile Dalby stage but it wasn’t to be.
We will be back next year though.
Bob Draper