2008 News...

Yesterday I completed my second rally and I finished with a 3rd in my class. This is my 1st podium in rallying and it feels great considering some of the problems we had in the second half of the rally.

The rally could be said to have been a rally of two halves. The same 3 stages were used twice once in the morning and again in the afternoon. In the morning the weather was warm and sunny, the stages were great to drive. In the afternoon it was the complete opposite, as the weather had closed in and it made some areas of the stages treacherous. Up to the last stage we had been doing well, but early on the last stage(Cropton 2), I misjudged my speed and ended up hitting the banking on the right hand side of the road. The momentum of the car bounced across the road into the ditch on the left. We were stuck, but fortunately this stage had many spectators willing to help us out. James my Co-Driver got out to co-ordinate the spectators pushing us out of the ditch. Once out we were able to carry on but we had lost between 3 and 4 minutes. We made it to the end of the rally thinking we were last but as we had a lead of more than 4.5 minutes on the team behind us we finished 3rd in class.

The overall statistics of the rally are that 107 teams started the rally, of whom 80 finished and I finished 77th. In the Formula 1000 Forest Rally Championship, which is the class I drive in, 5 teams started the North Humberside Rally, 4 teams finished and I finished in 3rd. This result moves me up to overall 3rd in the championship after 2 events.

The pictures above show me driving through the Cropton stage in the morning and at the finish in Whitby. More photos can be found if you click here Rally Gallery.

Thanks to James for being my Co-Driver and having to get out of the car in the rain to co-ordinate the spectators who were pushing us out of the ditch on the 2nd Cropton stage. Thanks also to John Goff and the Rallyschool support team for preparing the car.

Hopefully the Quinton Rally in mid Wales, on the 5th July 2008, will be my next rally.

Bye.