HORIBA D'ISIS 2009

Date: Saturday 04th April 2009

Event: Horiba D'Isis
Location: Mira Proving Ground
Number of entries: 80 Entries (2 Cruddles)
Seeded: John/Ian: 21, Andy/Liam: 37
Results: John/Ian: 25th Overall, 7th In Class, Andy/Liam: 37th Overall, 10th In Class

John/Ian: This would be a rally of the first's, First time at the event and at the venue. Also a first with a different co-driver in the shape of Ian Jones. It was a slow start on the first stage , taking a wrong tyre choice.[ too soft] but not to much time lost. It took a few stages to get confidence it the tyres and the co-driver, but it was ok. We were seeded at car 21 and through out the day we held our own, which to be honest was all we could hope for. And to finish 25th o/h and 7th in class was for me and the car a good result. it is a very fast place and smooth.

Andy/Liam: (Written by Liam) After Andy's pre-event testing/first drive of the car of about 15 miles, it was off to Mira for the 2009 (and possibly the last) Horiba D'Isis Rally.
With scruitineering, noise check and documentation going smoothly, the car was placed in to the hands of the service crew, Andy Smith and Pete Butler to make sure it was ok and ready for the first stage.
With the nice new Pirelli rubber fitted and the car ready to go it was into the queue of cars ready to book into ATC1 and onto stage 1.

Stage 1 was an eye opener for me, after a quick first half of the stage, I lost the my place in the pace notes, which resulted in an off on a 4 right off camber!. Luckly we didnt hit anyting, and only lost time whille drifting on the grass trying to get back onto the black stuff.
As the day went on we got quicker, with Andy getting used to the car and me constantly changing the pacenotes to make each circuit quicker.
Our next problem came on SS5 when the stage plan showed a bit bigger gap between a 3 left and a square left. Luckly Andy managed to control the car and we didn't hit the armco and lost little, if any time!
On the final two stages Andy simply told me to call the pacenotes around the handling / off camber circuits and then just watch. This was quite fun and I couldn't help but smile and laugh.

All in all we had a good day, with a good result 10th out of 23 in class, (with this being Andy's first rally in 5 years!).
Also the banter between us and John (who managed to finish 7th in class and 25th Overall, even with a co-driver he found on the internet!).

From the day, Andy has shown me how to be much more commited, I have now got to do this in my own rallying, and I hope I can take the lessons I have learned and apply them to the Somerset rally at the end of April.