Premier Rally 09

Date:  21st November 2009
Event: SA Gas / Revolution Wheels Premier Stages Rally
Location: Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire
Number of modern car entries:  48
Pete / John Seeded: 25th Overall    Result:  25th Overall and 3rd in Class

Written by Pete
A differernt Premier Rally this year with four stages in daylight and three stages in darkness.
Portland 1 & 2 : On the first two stages in Portland John was driving with a little more caution than usual as they were very very slippy, but we still managed to reach 96mph down the long gravel straight.
Sherwood Pines 1 : A little more grip and changing up through the gears to stop the wheels spinning so much, gave us a much improved time on this stage with no drama's, though we did run a little wide on some corners.
Clipstone South 1 : A fast and narrow stage, again slippy and muddy, but driven fast to leave us 2nd in class going into the main service break.
Portland 3 : With the spotlights fitted we arrived for our first night time stage at Portland. As we queued up a marshal came and informed us of a serious accident which meant the stage had to be cancelled, so we had to drive through the stage at a non competition speed, though it did give us a chance to test the spotlights.
Sherwood Pines 2 : Our first competitive stage in the dark. With local knowledge of the woods and the lights working well we were going really well on this stage, catching and passing the Fiesta ST in front of us in the first half of the stage. A map reading error then caused us to go straight on into a box junction at a square left, but we reversed out and still beat the 3rd in class car by 8 seconds.
Clipstone South 2 : As we approached the start of the stage the headlights and spotlights all stopped working After all attempts we could not get the lights back so, as it was the last stage we decided to drive slowly (or so I thought) through the stage with just the sidelights working and a torch shining out the window for a guide. When we set off it was pitch black in the the woods, we didnt really see the first corner as we got to it at 60mph, hit the bank and bounced back onto the road. After that I shone the torch further in front to catch sight of the advance arrows, then John put the brakes on and turned the wheel ! Many thanks to the marshals who heard us coming and shone their torches to show us where the corners were. We were overtaken near the end of the stage which allowed us to follow in the rear lights for a while and we finally got to the end of the stage, wet, muddy and cold from the open window trip. On checking our stage time, amazingly we only dropped around 1 minute 30 seconds to the car behind us in class, over the 5.93 mile stage, this meant we only dropped one place and still won a trophy for 3rd in class. After the first corner I didn't think we would even get around, so well done for some inspired night driving from
John "The Bat" Stevens !!!