John Cope/Rob Fagg Car 4
This year was a rally of mixed fortune………….
The run up to the Tunnocks Mull rally 2012 had been fairly good to us, a win on the Isle of Man in February, a 5th overall on West Cork and a 2nd on the Enville stages at Anglesey stood us in good stead, however a front outer CV failure on the Pokerstars rally back on the Isle of Man in July created a little concern. It was decided to replace the front drive shafts completely before Mull, along with a gearbox check and other routine maintenance.
A good recce the week before saw me and Rob Fagg chilled and ready to go and have another crack at getting the elusive win on Mull . With no problems through noise and scrutineering on Friday morning it left us kicking our heels for 8 hours.
Friday night start was wet and horrible for the large crowd that gathered for the ceremonial start and autograph signing in Tobermory (it was like a WRC round !).
Intermediates were the tyres of choice.
All was going well halfway through the first test over the Mishnish Lochs stage when on an approach to a hairpin left, the car understeered and I had to apply the handbrake, the car snapped sideways and left us pointing to the inside of the bend, setting off again I knew immediately that there was something wrong. We had dropped a chunk of time but still managed 7th quickest.
I later found out at service what I had feared, another outer CV failure on the same side. In between, before we got to service was another stage, a whopping 14 mile test over the 'Hill road and loch Tuath' this we managed but only 29th fastest, dropping us down the leader board to 17th overall.
At service, the guys set to work and replaced the complete shaft with plenty of time to spare.
Stages 3 to 7 went well, no problems and setting good times to move us back up to 8th overall. The 8th test of the night was Griburn Rocks where we experienced another drive shaft problem, this time it was both rear shafts, the bolts had come loose and one had dropped off 2/3rds the way through the stage, however and surprisingly we didn't drop that much time and still held our 8th overall.
The emergency service after stage 8 was frantic, bodies everywhere crawling over the car establishing just exactly what was wrong and then, fixing it in double quick time. The guys did a sterling job to get it done but it left us with a 12 mile road section to do in just 12 minutes, a feat which we nearly achieved, dropping just 1 of our 5 minutes lateness. The last stage of the night was a 22 miler, the Calgary bay/Glen Aros stage. Thankfully all went well and we finished the night in 8th Overall.
With Friday night being so fraught, we were hoping for a good clean run for the rest of the rally. Saturday was also wet so we stuck on the same 4 tyres that had done Friday night. A good run on the daylight stages saw us move up from 8th to 4th including a fastest stage time on SS10 :
By Saturday night the rain had stopped but the roads were damp, so the big decision was going to be tyre choice. I opted for slicks, feeling brave! However on the drive down to Salen I was very much undecided, it was very slippy under the trees yet you could see a very distinct dry line appearing. By the time we got to the start it was drizzling, albeit very fine and I lost my bottle, so a quick change back to inters by the chase crew settled my mind. It was to be the right decision, it was very slippy. On stage 16, the penultimate stage, Tony Bardy put his Nissan Sunny GTiR off the road and promoted us to 3rd overall, Calum/Iain Duffy taking the win from a flying John MacCrone/Stuart Louden in his fiesta R2. We held onto 3rd to the finish, a brilliant result considering our problems on Friday night.
Thanks must go to all the team for another valiant effort - Dean of Geoprep, Andy, Richy, Ben, Tony/Rhys and Rob for sitting in with me.
Another year goes by and the Holy grail remains just that. One year, maybe!
Photos courtesy of Lindsay Photo Sport
John
