The biggest worry before the event was that all the speed gained in Sweden might be lost due to the 3 month break, but this proved to be unwarranted - and how!
The event covered 4 stages in Clocaenog, used twice, plus 2 in Penmachno and a brand new stage overlooking Corwen.
The terrible weather, combined with very "iffy" pace notes resulted in a very high attrition rate. Luckily Howard had decided to use the excellent Pine Lodge stage maps, rather than the notes, so Nik managed not to fall (literally) into any of the traps set by the notes.
This was to be the crew's first National A event and a total stage mileage of 73, with a number of link sections less than 10 min, meant that the pressure would be on.
Saturday morning was very, very wet, with mist on the higher parts of the stages. With central service near Corwen, visited 4 times, and management service after every stage, the service crew was really going to have to work.
Things started in the usual way (wake up Nik!), but then got better until stage 5. A very large rock had appeared on one of the 4th gear straits, (all these WRC cars do some damage) and the result was a bent wheel and puncture, which cost about 95 sec on the stage.
The afternoon and early evening went much better; Nik managed to beat his morning time on all the repeated stages. One screamer of a time on stage 9 was disallowed, even though the time card was clear, and agreed with the trip in the car, because "It was just tooooo quick" - 30 sec added.
At the end of the event, the crew was 2nd in class A7 and 37th overall, not bad for your first taste of a National A. So the silverware was collected, and everybody came home happy. Now all we have to do is get the car reprepared for the Woodpecker on 1st September
