Done it!

I sat and passed my BARS test last weekend at the Chrisk Birkbeck Rally School in Saltburn, Cleaveland. This was the last piece of the puzzle that I needed to enable me to apply for my National B Stage Rally Licence. My application has now been sent to the MSA and hopefully I will receive my licence next week! I have also sent the MSA Competition logbook for the car to the MSA to register it in my name.

Whilst not a lot of mechanical work has been carried out on the Metro, I am hoping to be able to get the welding completed within the next week and then get it in for it's MOT. The plan is to get this done by the end of December so I'll be good to go on the Jack Frost Stages.

Things have also started to progress on the Escort as well. The gear box has finally been re-fitted after we had to take it off to fix the clutch which failed on the Thor Hammer Stages. This involved a lot of swearing one night in the garage with a light that didn't help matters due to it repeatedly cutting out. I bet Seb Loeb doesn't have these problems!

We're hoping to have the car up and running in time to enter the Christmas Stages at Croft later this month - watch this space!

2008

Plans for 2008 are progressing nicely for RPR.

I am booked to sit my BARS test that I need to apply for my competition license - fingers crossed this means that by the end of November I will be in a position to get my Driving and Navigating licences for the coming year.

We met last night 'down the local' to discuss what sort of enets we'd be looking at for the coming season and to sit down with Craig Warner who will be co-driving the Metro in 2008. Clive is hoping to have the Escort in the Forests in 2008 if we are able to secure a reasonable level of sponsorship. I will be competing in mainly Multi Use events in the Metro but I'm also looking at doing one or two tarmac events. We both hope to be in the woods in November for the Kall Kwik Rally if it keeps to a similar route to this year as there are two stages at Temple Newsam which makes it our local event and one on which we would look at getting all our sponsors and everyone who had helped us through the year down

Metro Update.

The process of cleaning up the Metro and getting fully licensed up ready for the new year is well underway.

• The car was given a quick clean on the outside to get the dust and grime off
• The huge amount of dust that had got inside the car has been brushed away
• T-cut has been purchased ready for use on the bodywork
• The drivers seat has been moved back so I can get my legs in!
• The co-drivers seat has been removed to allow easier access to the car!

With the car on axle stands and the front wheels off we have been able to have a better look at the inside of the front wings. Erm...! As you would expect on a car of this age, there is a certain amount on rotten metal that will have to be removed and some metal patches welding into place, but I have been informed by Clive that this is not a massive job! This will be done over the next few weeks (all things being equal!)

I have applied for my novice driver pack from the MSA and I'll hopefully be getting on a course to sit my novice driver test during November, allowing me to apply for my full license in time for Croft in January.

Double Trouble!

Red Pig Rally recently doubled in size when erstwhile co-driver, Peter, purchased a Austin Metro to compete in.

The car has been prepared and rallied in the past and comes with a Fibreglass front end and boot, full cage, sump and tank guards and is fitted with a 1275 engine... the 'Finding Nemo' stickers have been removed and new harnesses are needed but work has started in cleaning up the car and hopefully this will be up and running for the Jack Frost Stages at Croft in January.

I'll keep updates posted on how we're progressing throughout Autumn!

Thor Hammer Stages 2007 - Driffield - Escort MkII

The Red Pig Rally Team were back out and competing on Sunday 16th September 2007 after the disaster that was the 2WD Challenge at Twyford. The front end had been pulled back into shape, the brakes were working again and some welding had been done to repair a split in the boot floor.

We made the decision to stay over locally on the Saturday night rather than turning up on the day of the rally like we had done on previous events. This allowed us the time to cycle the course and look for any potential hazards as well as meaning we could have an hours extra kip on the Sunday morning!

The Rally itself had mixed fortunes for us - we lost power on the first stage when a cable came loose, but other than that the car was in fine fettle until we were in the queue for stage 7 which was to be the last stage of the day when we lost the clutch and that was us out. In retrospect we believe that we were on the pace, however we are unable to confirm this as we never received our times for the day, despite contacting two people from De Lacy MC - thanks for that guys. We also had a near miss when a Subaru overshot a 90 right and ended up flying straight into our path whist we were motoring over the flying finish at 80-90mph.

The organisation of the event has come under a lot of criticism - we were sat for at least 15 minutes after the time we were due on stage between every stage, the stage plans were pathetically incorrect and the amendments posted at sign on were vague to say the least. As I've said, we were marked OT on stage 1 (possibly) and stage 2 (definitely not) and there were no other stage times posted for us and nobody at De Lacy seems to be bothered in providing this information. I appreciate the fact that none of the marshals get paid but we paid De Lacy £170 to enter the event plus the expenditure we incurred for accommodation, petrol, van hire etc - the fact that they seem to be unable to tell us what our times were is a little unfair to say the least, especially was we spoke to the CoC on the day and informed him that our time for SS2 was incorrect.

Anyway, the aftermath of the event see's the Escort on axle stands, the gear box has been removed and new clutch forks have been acquired ready for fitting. We have no further plans to compete in 2007 (but you never know!) so we intend to fix a few niggles on the car ready for 2008.

ALL PHOTOS COURTESY OF: Matt Rudd, http://www.motorsportinternational.tk/ CHEERS FELLA!