A Greystokes Mudbath!

This rally was incredibly interesting. My first in the rain, and the surfaces turned to mud in these conditions, which made for a very slippery driving experience. This one also had me in the new Mini I mentioned in the last post, a very yellow newly built Cooper Challenge car, FM04 TLY!

Harriet Worth was in a Rally MX-5 for this round, so I was instead joined by Colin Stephens - an experience navigator who normally co-drives for the Lotus-bits Rally Team! I was put in touch with Colin thanks to Harriet's Dad James, and I was very glad to have him with me for this rally!

The conditions, as stated above, were horrendous! At times the surfaces of the stages were like ice! On SS1, 13 cars went off, which certainly rattled the nerves having had an accident in my last rally.

Colin and I determined that this really was going to be a survival rally, and to get the best points we could, finishing and having a safe rally would be far more productive than the alternative: crashing out!

As the stages went on, I started to get back in to the swing of it and driving started to feel more natural. I felt I was in full control again. Colin and I put in some very decent times in class, but we definitely drove more cautiously than we'd have likes in order to get to the end. No mechanical issues or incidents

In the end, Colin and I were very happy with where we finished - 8th in out of the ANWCC group, 6th out of the Minis and 9th in Class 2. My next Rally is going to be at Weeton Barracks, which due to a few unforeseen circumstances, will likely be my last competitive drive of the year, but we'll see. Happily, Harriet will be back with me to compete at the stages, and we both can't wait!