Cambrian Rally 2022
Just two weeks after the debut of the Minion - Our Ford Fiesta R2 - it was time to head back to Wales to finish off our season in the Welsh Rally Championship.
I’d driven the car for the first time from service to SS1 on the Wyedean and because of this it was always going to be a rally used as a test for the main event, the Cambrian!
Heading into SS3 (or SS1 for us National competitors) I was feeling confident that I knew the car well enough to push on a bit… then the rain fell and boy did it fall! No point in heroics here, this stage - Clocaenog - is a totally different beast to the likes of any stage on the Wyedean. As we made our way through the stage, my confidence started to build, I knew it was going to be slippy in the pouring rain but I was actually amazed at how much grip we had! It was time to pick up the pace and enjoy the mud.
After the morning loop we were 9.1 seconds off the class lead, unfortunately the first two stages of the afternoon wouldn’t be quite so plain sailing. A few mistakes meant that we had lost time but it finally all came together in Alwen, the only stage of the entire event where we didn’t make any mistakes.
Beating our nearest rivals by almost 13seconds and taking our first stage win of the event felt good, I know we had the pace it had just taken us most of the day to find it. We were now just 3.7 seconds from the lead with one final stage to go…. not just any stage though! Penmachno! A brilliant stage/challenge and probably my favorite stage of the weekend. This time ‘round it would be in the dark! I couldn’t wait to get going and push on for the win!
Total darkness, lamp-pod on, “Ready?”, “Yep!”… 5,4,3,2,1 GO! Penmachno in the dark, what a stage! I managed to catch the car in front just after passing through the flooded quarry, as I hit a big puddle I couldn’t see a thing and once the windscreen wipers managed to keep up and just about clear my vision all I could see was another Fiesta parked in front of me, thankfully they’d pulled over to let me go and I managed to avoid going into the back of them. Not much time was lost but with the win in the back on my mind I pushed on… that was until I hit a wall of fog, as I reached to switch the lamp-pod off to improve vision the engine died and the lit up like a Christmas tree, my first thought “OH, SHIT” my second thought “YOU’VE HIT THE KILL SWITCH, NOT THE LAMP POD YOU IDIOIT!”…. I couldn’t see or feel the switch though my gloves, I had to pull over in a layby, reset and off we went…
A really stupid mistake that ended up costing over 30seconds. We ended the rally in 2nd place +23.8 from victory. A tough one to take, gutted. What a great event to end the season on though and looking back I’m proud of what We’ve achieved this year. I can’t wait to see what 2023 will bring… time to move that lamp-pod switch…
