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EACS
Endurance Rally
28th March '09
The weekend started with me embarking on a 4½
hour long train journey to Ely, near Bury St Edmunds on
the Friday night. After a few pints and a bacon butty I
finally settled down for the night, staying at the home
of my driver for the event, Andy Beaumont. Saturday
morning soon arrived and we set off for the start of the
EACS Endurance Rally, starting at the Holiday Inn,
Ipswich. For those who haven’t heard of or
know about an endurance rally, it is essentially a
combination of stages (“selectifs”) during the day,
followed by a road event through the night, with each
event slightly different in format.
S1-4 was held in the complex of Woodbridge
Airfield, which would soon to turn out to
be the place I never wish to return to! S1 was a quick
run around a perimeter track with no major difficulties.
But on a flat straight, we hit a bump in the ground,
sending the car onto two wheels, and sliding off into a
field with the crew petrified of hitting another bump
and putting the car on it’s roof!
S2 saw a major error on my part (I blame the
headache). The diagram of the selectif was vague at
best, and resulted in us turning 90 right and straight
down the main runway, as opposed to the parallel track
between some trees. After seeing the wall of cones we
should have been on the other side of, we backed off for
the rest knowing we would receive a maximum for that
test.
S5+6 were to be held in the Bentwaters complex,
made famous after being used for “Top Gear”. Some
reasonably quick times here, despite the shot bog
standard suspension on the little 205. Following this,
there were a few short selectifs to a lunch halt, with
the entire day then repeated with tests in reverse.
S18 was the penultimate selectif of the day, with
a petrol stop just afterwards. This turned out to be too
far away for us, having to park up in some hay halfway
through the test. After an unsuccessful run to the next
marshals to see if they had some spare fuel, I managed
to blag a lift to the nearest petrol station. A rush
back to the stranded car and owner saw us back to the
main control just in time, with about half an hour to
eat and get ready for the night leg, missing the final
test, and picking up another maximum in the process.
“Presence of travellers” saw two of the eight
pitch-black forest selectifs being cancelled, which
turned out to be to our benefit. The sheer lack of
suspension forced us to just try and get the car through
some of the sections.
Rather disappointingly, there were only two
“proper” road rally sections on the leg, where emphasis
was on plot-and-bash navigation. The first section saw
us waiting outside the control for six minutes, and the
other for 3½ minutes. This was all a bit annoying
because we’re a lot quicker through the lanes than many!
Overall, we finished 37th o/a and 11th
in class. However, I think this was one of those “Just
happy to have finished” events!
Rob Lloyd
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