Ade-TR4 Posted November 8, 2004 Report Share Posted November 8, 2004 Hi all, a pretty good rally all-in-all. Finished 14th overall, 2nd in class. We were also the highest placed TR too! (and there was some serious machinery out there - a £50,000 revington special TR3a for one, and another TR3a that came within 47s of us, but in the end finished 19th) Tough class, the XK150 took overall 3rd (and so wasn't eligible for class awards). We were second to an AC-Aceca that came 2nd on one of the recent Irish events. (had a farmer not wrong-slotted us we'd have been ahead of them in overall 5th!!! IF IF IF...!!!!!!) Andy acheived 1st or second place in class on vitually all the tests (without full throttle as well!), which helped keep the dredded panalties down. A total of 7mins 22s over a 4 day event is pretty good (by my standards anyway!). We beat some well known s too (Wiseberg and Woodman, and the MKii navigated by Nigel Raeburn to name just 2!) A fantastic event, one I would love to do again - LEJOG without the pain and risk of sleep-driving. I'm sure Andy will fill in the gaps cheers all Ade Quote Link to post Share on other sites
jhowe3 Posted November 8, 2004 Report Share Posted November 8, 2004 Ade and Andy, I followed the results on a daily basis on the internet and though that there must have been a problem on day one. I noticed that you then climbed the table to get a very good result. Well Done. Jim Howe Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GSKTR4 Posted November 9, 2004 Report Share Posted November 9, 2004 Thanks Jim The only real "problems" (or dropped bo**ocks) were during the night section though North Devon after taking class wins on both the hill-climbs out of Porlock. On one very sleep and slippery descent followed by a hairpin left over a bridge at the bottom, I arrived much too fast and wasn't able to brake at all given the surface, so we mangled the o/s front wing and brand new TR5 front valance, but didn't lose any time there despite having to pull the wing away from the tyre. Then we went straight on into a farm yard (home of angry farmer) and popped out in the middle of a control, so we collected a "wrong approach", penalty 5 minutes (or the equivalent of 30 minutes as the penalties on this section were only 10 secs per minute on the road). This one penalty dropped us some 21 places, but this was later reduced to 2 minutes after we and many others pointed out the danger of having a penalty of only 2 minutes for missed control, which would encourage people to steam through without stopping. Overall we were really pleased with our performance, Adey was great on the maps and keeping me going in the right direction on the tests. We had a zero score on 16 out of 30 tests (i.e. 1st) and 9 2nds, 3 3rds, 2 4ths and a 5th giving us a total test penalty of 61 seconds - the winners had test penalties of 71 seconds - Rally of the Tests? No, regularities decided it again, of course!! The SU's have made a world of difference to the power delivery on tests but we need to do some serious work on the linkages as the pedal travel is huge and we never got anything approaching full throttle all event long, sometimes about half throttle at most - can't wait to see how she goes with a nice short cable-operated action and proper full throttle opening All in all quite a TR-fest, plus some wonderful other cars, interesting friendly people, brilliant route and organisation, great hotels and food - highly recommended for the future. cheers, Andy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Tr4Tony Posted November 10, 2004 Report Share Posted November 10, 2004 Sounds like a great performance - very interested to hear the SU's work well - im approaching the point where the webers may come off as im sure the car is overcarburetting. Terence will be happy as he is going down this line with his blue creation ....... How come you were so quick on the tests Andy (ability accepted of course ....!) have you done much to the front and handbrake ????? Next year eh! Regards Tony Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GSKTR4 Posted November 10, 2004 Report Share Posted November 10, 2004 How come you were so quick on the tests Andy (ability accepted of course ....!) have you done much to the front and handbrake ????? Biggest change was the ability to get off the line quickly and pull away from stop astrides, reversing, etc. without bogging down, or even stalling, like we did on the Targa. This must be due to a combination of better carburation and finally getting the valve timing "perfick". It's still a little cammy, but not in the sense that there's "nothing" below 3,000 rpm, just that there's a whole lot more after ... and a glorious "yowl" that everyone commented on very favourably!! Can't wait to be able to get full throttle on the next rally!! AMK Engineering have also completely rebuilt both front and rear suspension, including 1.75 deg of neg camber at the front using the Revington kit. They also fitted uprated springs all round, which gave us a fair bit more ground clearance just where it mattered. Oh, and I basically just went like hell everywhere!! cheers, Andy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
alanh Posted November 11, 2004 Report Share Posted November 11, 2004 Andy, A belated thank you for the heads up on the rally. I had no idea it was going by until i saw your note. I drove up from Plymouth to catch the Ansteys Cove test at Torquay but got there too late so drove on to Powderham and saw you all go through the first test. Very impressive. I got caught up in the rally traffic between Torquay and Powderham and found myself in a queue of classics for a time control. That was me in the green TR2 if anyone noticed. Anyway thanks again. Cheers, Alan Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GSKTR4 Posted November 11, 2004 Report Share Posted November 11, 2004 A belated thank you for the heads up on the rally. I had no idea it was going by until i saw your note. I got caught up in the rally traffic between Torquay and Powderham and found myself in a queue of classics for a time control. That was me in the green TR2 if anyone noticed. No problem Adam, really glad you could make it. You didn't miss much at Anstey's Cove and Powderham was probably a much better place to watch. And I bet that was one traffic jam you were glad to be stuck in ... it's great to be in amongst all those wonderful cars, you just have to wonder at the courage of some of the drivers to push such old machinery so hard and risk potential damage (which many, including my own TR4, did suffer - particularly to o/s/f wings!!)! Big question ... have you ever tried classic rallying yourself and if not has it given you a taste for it Alan? cheers, Andy Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Guest mrodbert Posted December 2, 2004 Report Share Posted December 2, 2004 Rally of the Tests? No, regularities decided it again, of course!! Isn't it funny how you lead boot merchants always claim its the regularities that decide the rallies, when those of us who are better at regularities (I would never claim to be good at them) always think its the Tests that make the difference. Just trying to get some discussion going. Mark Quote Link to post Share on other sites
GSKTR4 Posted December 2, 2004 Report Share Posted December 2, 2004 Rally of the Tests? No, regularities decided it again, of course!! Isn't it funny how you lead boot merchants always claim its the regularities that decide the rallies, when those of us who are better at regularities (I would never claim to be good at them) always think its the Tests that make the difference. Mark Ha ha ha!! OK, got me there Mark. OK - here's my point in a bit more detail ... switch off now if you're easily bored - the penalties on the Rally of the Tests were such that the fastest in class on a test got zero penalty, second 3 secs, 3rd 5secs up to a maximum of 10 seconds - even if you took hours or didn't even turn up for it. On a regularity you got the early or late penalty in full (up to a maximum of a minute per control) so one wrong bit of navigation could cost you the same as messing up six tests. I did a bit of a count up on test times for the cars that came above us and we were more than a minute and a half faster on cumulative times than the people who came second and third overall on the rally, only the winner beating us (by 50 secs in total, or under 2 secs per test) - yet we came 14th o/a. I'm not complaining (like Hell ) - 'cos we all knew the rules and that's what historic rallying is like - it's just the title "Rally of the Tests" would lead you to think more emphasis might be placed on tests. If it was the Revival Rally we might have been 2nd ... now there's a thought Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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