2nd Press Release, NI NRC

The McGrady Insurance Night Rally Challenge 2012 will kick off on Friday 10th February with an introduction to the sport of Navigation Rallying and full details on what is happening this year.

The night will focus on the fundamental skills required to compete in Navigation Rallying with presentations from experienced competitors in the sport. These skills can then be tried out with a practice table top rally in preparation for the first road based event which follows on 2nd March.

Topics covered on Friday 10th February will include:

• What is navigation rallying?
• Simple navigation instructions
• Car preparation
• Rally Timing

The venue for the first night will be Superdrive Motorsport Centre near Portadown. Sign on will be at 7:00pm with the presentations starting at 7:30pm sharp. The cost to register for the 2012 Challenge will be £10 per person which includes a starter pack containing everything you will need to use on the first night. You will not need to bring anything with you.

There will be many people there who are not already part of a crew, so if you need a driver or a navigator for future events then we should be able to provide one.

The Northern Ireland Night Rally Challenge rounds will be on:
10 February – Queen’s MC (No driving will be involved)
2 March – Newry & District MC
30 March – Cookstown MC
15 September – Dungannon MC
13 October – Rathfriland MC
26 October – Omagh MC
17 November – Ulster Automobile Club

These dates and more information will be posted on the ANICC website and our Facebook page.

Superdrive

ANICC Prize Giving 2011

Saturday just past was the annual ANICC prize giving dinner. As Rachel and I had come 2nd in our class in the 2011 nav' rally championship we were there to collect our trophies. But not only did we get our trophies, we also got a free dinner, happy days, there isn't much I like more than a free feed. It was a good nights craic, the food was good, I got a few pints and I had a bit of banter with Neil and Andy.

Although Davy and Clive beat us in the championship by a single point I feel pretty good about how the year went. We won more events than anyone else and we had 3 wins from 4 starts, that's a good record in anyone book.

There will be no nav' rally championship in 2012 as we are running a beginners challenge to hopefully bring some new faces into the sport. I'm quite heavily involved in organising the challenge so I'll have more details about it later.

2011 Championship Points

Firecracker Nav Rally 2011

Well that is the championship over for another year with the Firecracker Rally on Friday night having been the last round.

It was a good night for trying out my new tyres as it was dry and clear and the Class 2 championship had already been decided. There had been heavy rain in the days leading up to the event so from TCB to TCD had been scrapped due to flooding and so we had a relaxed section instead. This suited me fine as it meant I had a chance to explain to the following crews why I had been driving so slowly!

I wasn't getting on at all well with my new tyres. I had no feeling from the front of the car or from the brakes so I was being extra super cautious in the corners. I've heard that there is a releasing agent used at the factory to get them out of their moulds and it takes a few miles to scrub it off but it's not something I've ever noticed before. I have to say though that by the end of the night either the tyres improved greatly or I had just got used to them because I though they were working great. On the few dirty sections of road it definitely felt like they were biting in harder and giving me good grip. All in all I'm very pleased with my new Quatrac 3's.

We were getting on pretty well, there where a some tricky sections and Rachel was deciphering the instruction quickly, but Andy and Neil where right with us all night. We swapped road positions several times but it wasn't until they missed a junction, leading to a wrong approach and a couple of missed secrets that we could put some space between them and us. Once we seen that they had made a mistake we knew if we kept it clean for the rest of the night they couldn't catch us.

The navigation for the second half of the rally seemed to be easier and we didn't need to push too hard but we did get caught out when the road turned 90 right after a crest and we carried straight on up a farm lane. We were leading a convoy of 4 cars at that point and 3 of us went up the lane before we got stopped. My panic braking knocked off the shelf above my peddles and it was hanging down round my feet which make it very difficult to drive but I get it wedged back into place somehow and we didn't lose too much time.

At the end of the night we were 1st in class 2 which makes it 3 class wins from 4 starts this year, a record I'm very proud off. The only one that let us down was getting stuck in that field in Tyrone on the Erne Safari. We pulled the championship back to make it look like it was tighter than it really was with Davy and Clive beating us by a single point in the end. I had great fun at the nav rallies this year and with more wins than anyone else I feel pretty confident we would be in a good position for the 2012 championship.

Before the next outing I need to look at removing the shelf above the pedals and relocating the switches that are mounted on it. I need adjust the exhaust to stop if touching the body as it is making a terrible racket and I need to reattach my rear view mirror as it has fallen off.


Firecracker Results

Hero to Zero

What a weekend, absolutely brilliant! Two events in two days is a great way to spend a weekend.

First up we had North Armagh Motor Clubs Orchard Navigation Rally. It was the first nav' to run in the second half of the season, everyone was well up for it and the club didn't disappoint. The event ran in the area south of Armagh City for the first time and it was a worth while change, the roads were great. I had to press on most of the night and the roads took a lot of driving. It had been fairly wet leading up to the rally so there were large puddles on most route with us having to wade through a couple of flooded sections. Having not had the Nova out on a nav' for almost a year it took a bit of getting used to, I've grown used to having power steering in the Passat, but the Nova coped very well with a couple of miss judged yumps. The first was just before the relaxed section and as I was following another competitor I only had my dipped lights on, which are very poor and I didn't notice the bump, so didn't slow down for it. We got launched feet into the air, well it felt like that anyway, and then landed hard. The Bilstein dampers I have in the back of the car seem to be a great job as it landed nice and sweet and without drama, unlike some other crews I talked to who also got caught out and then had the back of the car bounce back off the road again. Or that might just be the famous 106 torsion beam rear end. The second bump was just after relaxed and had a dip just before it so this time it launched us up onto our nose, there are scratches on the front of the bumper! Our underbelly served as a warning to Clifford Auld who was following as he just managed to get slowed down in time and avoided doing the same thing. Great nights craic and it was fantastic to see all the old faces out again. Speaking of which, Paddy McCollum came out of retirement and put in his usual high quality performance to finish first overall. In doing so he has completed the full set and has now won all of the rallies in the navigation championship. To my knowledge he is the only person to have done this. And to top of the night we won our class, happy days.

So after a late night and then up early to get the car washed it was down to Larne for their first running of a lanes rally. Larne Motor Club had organised a very compact route with the total mileage for the event being just 55 miles and with most tests being lanes rather than autotests I was very much looking forward to the days motoring. The morning was very wet but it had mostly cleared up for the start. The rain had left the tests in a bit of a state and all were very slippery. This wasn't helped by my front tyres being almost completely worn out. I have to admit that I wasn't happy with my driving. I wasn't aggressive enough, I had no confidence in the grip and I was just rolling up to stop lines rather then attacking them, a very poor effort on my part. Other than that I was enjoying the rally, I love being out in the Nova no mater what I'm doing. Unfortunately my lack of confidence in the front end grip and my general poor driving on the event led to me getting stuck for 8 minutes. I was on a bad line coming into a 90 right and understeered into a soft bank that I couldn't reverse out off. I have it on video so I'll upload it in the future so we can all enjoy my mistake. Luckily a marshal and the land owners sons came to my rescue and got me out so we could carry on. There wasn't a mark on the car but the time loss was massive and meant we finished the rally in last place. My brother, Niall, was out on the rally as well in his newly acquired Sierra. He got on well and put up some very competitive times but he suffered the same fate as I had and got stuck in the scenery. The first test had a deep gravel section and and the Sierra just dug down into it until it was sitting on its belly, game over. He wasn't the only one to get caught out on that section as the Fletchers Escort ended up the same way. All in all we both enjoyed the rally and will be back next year, even though we finished last and second last.

Few things to sort out before the next event. I need to adjust my spot lights, they are shinning a bit high. I need to get 2 new front tyres, probably go for Pirelli P6000s again. And I need to work out a better way to mount my jack as it rattles a lot where it is and isn't actually very secure.


North Armagh Motor Club
Results

Larne Motor Club
Results

Circuit of Down Nav Rally 2011

Unfortunately the Circuit of Down navigation rally rally didn't run on Friday night. Again the reason was a lack of entries. I thought that this one might have ran, there seemed to be a bit more movement towards people entering on Monday but it still wasn't enough. I've been putting posts up on Really Mean Sounds about the rallies so I think word is getting out, very slowly though. Not much we can do but keep plugging away in the hope that things will pick up again. There is a nav rally section on this years Circuit of Ireland Retro so if people enjoy it then they might think about doing a purely navigation event, we can but hope.

Really Mean Sounds
Newry and District Motor Club
Circuit of Ireland Retro

Moonraker Nav Rally 2011

I'm not supposed to be in front of the computer right now. I should be out competing in Dungannon Motor Clubs Moonraker Rally but unfortunately it was cancelled due to lack of entries. DMC usually get a good entry for their rally as they run a popular rally school, so the fact that even they couldn't get enough crews to make the event viable is a very bad sign for Navigation rallying in general.

Entry numbers were down towards the end of last years championship and it was decided that if 2011 was also a bad year then there would be no championship in 2012, which looks very much like it is going to happen.  I have been talking to Davy McElroy who runs Newry and District Motor Clubs Circuit of Down Navigation Rally and he didn't seem optimistic about the chances of it running either. Bad times ahead for Navigation rallying.

The Moonraker being cancelled is even more disappointing because I've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks getting the Nova ready for it. Got some new spotlights fitted and my rally timer installed, all ready to get stuck into the second half of the championship. I'm now left in the situation where the championship that I built my car for doesn't exist anymore, not sure what I'm going to do. There are a few more Lanes rallies popping up on the calender so I can do those as the car is now, but to do anything else I'm going to need to get the Nova log booked. That's not a big problem because I have most of the bits to get it up to spec but it's the extras that will require a bit of money. I'll need to upgrade my competition licence and get a rally suit and helmet. I think that will have to wait till next year.

Nova Saloon Parts Car

Being off work on Friday for the Royal Wedding was great, it gave me a chance to finally pick up the Nova saloon that I'm going to use to repair the rally car. The saloon has a rally history of it's own as it was campaigned with success in the NI nav rally championship by Neil Anderson and Andy Hughes. It's last event was the Dawnbreaker Inter-Association Rally in 2004 where it took a class win. It was then parked up in a garage in Ballywalter until I dragged it back out so that, at least some of its parts, can hopefully go on to future class wins. The saloon wings are different from the hatchback wings but they will do for now to get her back on the road.

It's still wearing its competition numbers from its last rally.

A big thank you to Richard Swanston for giving up his day to tow the car home.

Just out of interest these are the results and report from the saloon's last outing.
http://www.anicc.org.uk/Resources/Documents/20041112_NIMC_DawnbreakerRally_Results.pdf
http://www.anicc.org.uk/Blog.aspx?b=210

Bone Shaker Rally 2011

Omagh Motor Club had their Bone Shaker rally on Friday night. It was a great event and we managed to come away with 1st in class, which is a huge relief after our poor result on the previous round of the championship. Last years Class 2 Champions Neil Anderson and Andy Hughes were competing for the first time this year and were debuting their new rally car, however their recently purchased enduro spec 106 was almost their downfall as poor quality wiring meant that the car wouldn't start again after a stall and it cost them over 15 minutes getting it going again. We had a pretty clean run and Rachel had thought the instructions were easier than they had been in Enniskillen but it turned out to be a high scoring rally for everyone. Luckily for us Davy McElroy and Clive Latimer made a few errors to finished 3rd so we were able to take a few points back on them in the championship.

My Passat estate daily driver was once again called upon to double up as my rally car and it performed fairly well. I've removed the rear window tints and added a rear wiper so for the first time I could see where I'd been and I'd added uprated headlight bulbs to help me see where I was going. The new bulbs are some 130/90w "Ring Sport" jobs that I got from eBay for £15 and are a great improvement, especially on dip. The bulbs produce a lot more light but it doesn't travel any further so I still felt like I couldn't see as far as I needed to, but the junctions were easier to spot. As well as lighting the other main car issue on the night was a major lack of grip. It stayed dry for the rally but it had rained fairly hard about an hour before we started so the roads were wet. It seemed like every time I touched the brakes they locked the wheels and as a result I had to be extra cautious. Maybe that was for the best though as I managed to stay out of the fields this time.

That is us into the Nav rally summer break and the next event isn't until the 2nd September. I hope to have the Nova rebuilt by then so hopefully the Bone Shaker was the Passat's last rally. I'm pleased that it got to go out on a high, Passat estate - class winning rally car.

http://www.anicc.org.uk/Resources/Documents/20110415_OMC_BoneshakerRally_Results.pdf

Donaldson Fuels Nav Rally 2011

Unfortunately last nights round of the NI navigation rally championship was cancelled due to a lack of entries. I didn't do the rally last year but it seems to be the general feeling from people that I've talked to that the event was not well run and this may be the cause of the low number of entries for this year. Hopefully this will be the last event to be cancelled as we haven't scored well on the 2 rounds that have run and with fewer events left it's going to be hard to catch Davy McElroy/Clive Latimer who have won the class on both times.

Erne Safari 2011

The final result wasn't what I had hoped for but I had a good time none the less. It took me a few sections to shake off the rust from not having done a nav rally for what seems like a long time, but once I got back into the way of driving again it was really good. The Passat isn't the most suitable car but it performed well. The route wasn't overly tight so the Passat's size didn't cause any problems.

The main issue on the night was a lack of lights and that's an area I hope to have a look into before the next event in Cookstown on the 25th March. I just couldn't see far enough up the road to feel safe about trying to push on to get back on our minute. Some conventional uprated bulbs will be a good start, but I also have a HID kit that came with the Passat that I could refit.

Other issues that don't have such an easy fix are the brakes and the suspension. I could feel on a couple of occasions that the brakes were getting too warm so I had to look after them for a few miles until they cooled again. This was possibly only a problem due to there being no relaxed section on the rally so the car didn't get its usual half distance break to cool down. On the suspension side there were no real issues, I just felt that the car was sprung a bit soft for what I was asking it to do, I had to be careful of the sump and the front bumper was grounded out a few times.

As can be see from the results link below we were classed as DNF, which is very disappointing and not actually correct. Unfortunately just after TCH I got distracted, didn't notice a corner coming up and took the "safe" option of going a few meters through an open gate into a field. The field turned out to be very wet and we got stuck for the rest of the rally. Thankfully a local farmer towed us out and there was no harm done. We went to the finish at the hotel to hand in our time card and then went home. There was no point staying as we wouldn't be getting any trophies on this occasion. We were due to finish at TCJ so we had visited more than two thirds of the controls and should have been classes as finishers but the regulations weren't followed correctly. I've sent an email about it so I hope to get it sorted out, class 2 is going to be very competitive this year so we need all the points we can get.

Erne Safari Results:
http://www.enniskillenmotorclub.co.uk/es11/ESResults2011.pdf

CMC Donaldson Fuels Rally regs and entry form:
http://www.anicc.org.uk/Resources/Documents/Regulations%20permit11.pdf
http://www.anicc.org.uk/Resources/Documents/Entry%20Form11.pdf

Finally getting started!

Tonight will be my first event of the year and I'm really looking forward to getting back out competing, it feels like its been a very long time coming. Unfortunately I damaged the Nova this week so I wont be able to use it tonight which is big let down. It looks like the rally car will be off the road for a few months as the damage is quite substantial so my Passat estate daily driver will be called into action to make its rally debut. I installed all my rally equipment last night and it makes the dash look a bit like a space ship from the 1980's but hopefully it will help keep me on time tonight when I don't have the agility of the Nova to fall back on.

Tonight's event is the Erne Safari and is organised by Enniskillen Motor Club. It starts in Irvinstown so it will be a bit of a rush to get down on time but hopefully the rally will be worth it. We missed the first round of the championship so have no points on the board as yet, a good strong finish will be needed.

Tour of the Mournes 2011

Tonight was supposed to be the first round of the Northern Ireland Navigation Rally Championship with the Tour of the Mournes rally organised by Rathfriland Motor Club, but unfortunately due to the bad weather during the crucial weeks leading up to the event it has had to be called off, which is a great shame. The Tour of the Mournes is one of my favourite navs of the year because the weather is unpredictable, but this time it is that very variable that has forced it to be called off. With the event route being up in the mountains, in January, the grip level is constantly changing and for me it just adds an extra bit of excitement to the driving.

I competed a couple of years ago in an old Passat estate that had been bought for £100 to do the Scally Rally and it was brilliant fun. The big car was a bit of a handful and getting stopped at a few junctions on the ice was a real test of my ability, but we got round to the finish with no damage and a respectable score which earned Neil and myself a trophy for 3rd in class.

I hope that the bad weather doesn't become an annual event and the Tour of the Mournes returns again in 2012.