Dead Man᾽s Curve

Roger King

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This year`s Three Castles Welsh Trial in a TR7 Sprint did not go according to plan!
It happened so quickly; probably in just two or three seconds. Yet long enough in my own mind to curse my inadequacies as I awaited the crunching outcome; the moment when as a driver one becomes a passenger as the car adopts a course of its own seemingly on a route to destruction. So it was for me in a leafy lane in North Wales competing in this years Three Castles Welsh Trial.

It was the first day of the three day event. Last year one of my twin sons navigated for me and we finished fifteenth overall, this year my other son was in the hot seat, determined to better his brother, and as the morning wore on it seemed that he had every chance of doing just that. We were running number 136, the very last car, and in a class that comprised all sports and GT cars post 1974 to 1982. That meant we were up against some pretty fast machinery in the shape of Porsches and a particularly quick Jensen Healey, which would make things interesting on the fifteen or so special tests. On the regularities though outright speed has no role to play for it is timekeeping at low average speeds that count.

We had one further regularity before a halt for lunch. So far Andrew had proved more than capable of reading the tulip road book whilst juggling with the average speeds. The first few tests had gone well despite my momentary confusion as to what constitutes left and right, an increasingly senior thing I regret to say. We were doing ok. However, that was about to change.

I charged past a left turn we needed to make. Fortunately a lay- by beckoned for a rapid u-turn and we got back on track but we had lost some time. “The road we are on curves to the right but we need to go straight ahead up the narrow white,” instructed Andrew. Successfully negotiated we plunged into a dark valley on a road that had only recently been resurfaced with that noise reduction stuff. So unusually it was billiard smooth. (At this point reader do you detect that I am building up an excuse for the calamity that follows?) Trees overarched the road leaving the surface damp in parts. I slowed to what I believed was an acceptable speed given the conditions. Up ahead the road curved to the right, not particularly severe but worth backing off just a little. We entered the bend, I turned the steering wheel and nothing happened. Or rather it did because the car went straight on dropping into the outer ditch. There was a horrendous crunch as we seemingly slammed against a stone wall but I had the presence of mind to keep the power on to retain momentum so that we could get back onto the road. Amazingly we did just that but once on terra firma the poor old TR7 crunched and banged and crabbed its way forward as I guided it into a nearby pull off.

Convinced that the rear axle was adrift and thus our rally terminated before it had really begun I turned to Andrew and apologised. “Sorry son but it`s all over”, wishing some portable time machine could take us back thirty seconds or so. Andrew was philosophical, “Well at least I`m under no pressure now to best my brother.”

We got out of the car to survey the damage. My first re action was to express amazement that there was hardly a mark on the car, for I had assumed the whole near side would have been shot to pieces, but no, a small dent in the sill and a minor paint chip on the front wheel arch together with a fractured plastic bumper end cap were the only signs of body work damage. The axle seemed to be in situ, but the wheels were another case altogether. Both tyres had been split, with the front alloy wheel badly chipped on the rim, whilst the rear one had been shattered.

Now like nearly everyone else I only carry one spare. Ironically I had debated whether I needed that for in all my years of rallying I have never needed to change a wheel. My thinking was if I did not carry one and I had a problem I could use one of those repair aerosols that are supposed to do the trick. Think of the weight saving achieved, invaluable when competing with Porsches... Fortunately wiser councils prevailed and I did have a spare. But only one. And we needed two.

It quickly transpired that there was no mobile signal so unless we walked for miles in the hope we could obtain one we had to fall back on improvisation. Desperately frustrated by all of this I found myself listening to Andrew`s proposed solution. “We can replace the rear wheel with the spare and then attempt to plug the hole in the front by jamming a stick in it and then letting rip with the tyre repair aerosol,” he suggested, pushing a twig he had found into the hole. It`s a plan I thought, so barmy it might just work. Of course any pressure would surely shoot the twig out but what if Andrew held it in place whilst I pumped the aerosol gunge into the tyre? Okay total madness but we could at least try.

Then we got lucky for the next vehicle along was the course closing car, (we had forgotten we were the last runner). Flagged down, the crew promised to contact the rally service car and hopefully they would get to us in due course. Expecting a long wait we were delighted when they turned up five minutes later. By then we had precariously jacked the rear of the car up and replaced the shattered wheel with the spare. We had also removed the front wheel and ascertained that the damage to it was probably not sufficient to stop putting a replacement tyre on it if we could get one.

The service crew saw our predicament as a challenge. All we needed was a new tyre, ok, so let`s get one. It turned out Pwllheli was but a short distance away so with the wheel in the boot of their Volvo estate I set out with the driver. Now the likelihood of finding a tyre dealer with anything approaching a 185x70x13 radial was probably verging on the impossible. And the first tyre dealer confirmed my fears. “No call for them these days” he said, “but you could try the dealer down by the marina.” Taking his advice we did just that only to find the afore mentioned place seemingly dedicated to commercial vehicles. With sinking heart I approached one of the staff clutching the wrecked tyre. “No, we`ve got nothing like that, no call for them nowadays”, came a growingly familiar reply. If he did not have a 185x70x13 anywhere, I asked, in growing desperation, might he have a 175x70x13? Whilst not ideal it would have to do in the circumstance. With a grunt he disappeared into the loft of the tyre bay and I heard sounds of further groaning as stock was turned over.

Five minutes later he returned clutching a 175x70 x13 tyre, the very last he had. I could have wept with joy. Just perhaps we could get back in the event albeit with a mountain of penalty points. Quickly he fitted the tyre to the chipped wheel confirming that it would hold pressure. Fully balanced and costing me all of £50 we put the wheel in the back of the Volvo and drove back to the TR7 and fitted it in no time at all.

Now the moment of truth - had we damaged the car more than was observable? Back on the road I drove very cautiously, hands off the steering to check for any errant behaviour. Everything seemed perfect. No clunks or grinds. No strange noises. We waved good bye to the service crew who told us that their only reward was for us to get on with the rally and enjoy ourselves. With that Andrew plotted a route that would enable us to rejoin the event at the afternoon tea halt, which we duly did.

Of course having a 175x70x13 on the nearside front with a 185x70x13 on the off side is not ideal in theory, but in practice it made little or no difference to the handling of the car except under extreme manoeuvres that involved right hand turns. So, on all the remaining tests I had to bear that in mind. No doubt had it rained things might have been a bit different but the weather remained simply glorious.

So why did I not put the new tyre on the rear? Well normally I run on 195x60x14s, but a change in the rules which now allow a post 1974 car to be included in the overall result, (provided it runs on 70 series tyres), meant that I had resurrected an old set of wheels and tyres from the back of my lock up in order to comply. They were all in good condition and seemed ideal for the task in hand but this was a bad mistake. They looked up to the job but ultimately their grip clearly was not. So I decided that the replacement wheel whilst not of the same section at least offered a load more bite, so on the front it stayed.

One thing puzzled me though. Yes I messed up, but some 130 cars had passed through before we arrived at the scene of our moment so how come no one else came a cropper? Well they did, car number 135 to be precise, a Porsche. They came off in style at the exact same spot, smashing the whole side of their car and in so doing disturbing a very large rock that we connected with. Despite the extensive damage sustained their car was still driveable but a sorry sight to behold. Maybe we slid on some mud they disturbed, who knows?

By the end of the first day we were running in overall last position, although some six cars had already retired. With the penalty points we had accumulated there was no prospect of us being a serious contender for any award, but we could try and claw our way up the field. This we did, eventually finishing in 100th place. So given our incident we were reasonably satisfied.

Despite our “excursion” we had had a very enjoyable three days, with the Three Castles living up to its well deserved reputation, especially that of the recovery crew. Relief too that the car, despite the drama, remained virtually unscathed. With fuel prices as they are I was pleased as well that with 125bhp at the wheels, over 800 miles we averaged 27.7 mpg. A bit of a result that.

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