No rallying in the UK due to foot and mouth. How do you fancy a 120 stage mile event over 2 days, with a three day recce, and all for an entry fee, including service packs and pace notes, of £110.
Great you think, only problem is the event is in Southern Sweden, based at a town called Vaxjo. But still in went the entry, ferries, airline tickets, hire car (thanks Mr Avis for the recce car) and a cottage were all booked.
When entry list arrived, we found that there were 12 cars in A7, 10 of them Kits! a total entry of 138 and a seeding number of 65 (gulp). The format of the event was a Superspecial on Friday evening, 70 stage miles over an 18 hour period on Saturday, and 50 stage miles over 10 hours on Sunday - sort of like 3 BTRDA rounds back to back.
Once the recce was complete, (Mondeo Estates don't half slide on gravel) and the notes checked and modified it was time to get the car through scrutineering (slight hassle, but nothing major) and attempt the Friday stage - 1st problem was that the notes come up a hell of a lot quicker than on the recce, and in places there was too much information to read in the time available.
On Saturday Nik started to get to grip with the roads and the new Maxsport rubber he has using, he was swapping seconds with a Pug 106, and often got with 20 sec's of the ex works RS2000 kit of Guy Woodcock. Things were going well and the times improved with every stage. The last stage of the day was in the dark, and the road rally experience helped, taking a big chunk of time of both the 106 and the RS2000.
Sunday dawned bright and sunny, and after only about 4 hours sleep, we were off again. The first stage produced the first spin of the event, but worse was to follow on stage 20 - two big spins, the second putting the tail of the car down a bank. How you can get away with that twice on one stage and not hit any of the large boulders that line the stage is a mystery. At service, the reason for the sudden lack of control was found. Due to a long (1hr 30Min) fast road section in the hot conditions before the stage, the rear tyres were up to 45 psi and the front 40 psi.
Onto stage 21 the longest of the event at 18.6Km - on this one Nik succeed in winning the award for the Fastest Non Scandinavian A7 car. The rest of the stages were completed without drama, and the result was 40th overall and 7th in class - not bad for Nik's first overseas event, and even better that it was a European Championship event as well as Swedish National - Can we come back next year please.
Howard Cooper
23 May 2001
