The Rally of the Tests

MGB GT gets a good result

From Thursday 29th October to Sunday 1st November the ninth running of the Rally of the Tests took place, most people know that this event was once the famous RAC Rally of Great Britain. The RAC started in the fifties before it went into the Forests in 1961 and became the Great Rally. It was where enthusiasts took a week off work to compete marshal and spectate, it is now called Wales Rally GB.

The Rally of the Tests this year it started at Slaley Hall just outside of Hexham in Northumberland and finished in Peebles in Scotland, I had entered my BGT with Nigel Raeburn as my navigator therefore provided nothing went wrong with the car, a good result was on the cards. Regular readers may remember the elusive misfire I had experienced which would come and go. After the SLS Rally in Holland in August where the misfire had been a problem I took the car to the rolling road and it seemed to be a fuel problem. I changed both fuel pumps, I have two Facets plumbed in (one is a spare) so I can just flick a switch if there is a problem. With new fuel pumps, points and a full service the car was ready to go with ten days to spare, I like to have the car prepared well in advance, no last minute rush.

I really thought that everything was done and ready to go.

How wrong I was. I had made my mind up that I’d leave about ten o’clock on the Wednesday morning and have a leisurely drive up to Hexham thinking that I would be there by four o’clock to meet up with my navigator Nigel Raeburn. Then get the trip meter checked on the measured five mile run on Regularity sections which are timed at anything between 22 miles an hour up to thirty miles an hour. We have a Halda or Brantz, Retro Trip or Belmog which is a poor man’s Halda but just as good, but you have to set them up against the organiser’s mileage to be accurate.

‘Showground Sprint’ test at the Scottish Showground

On the ‘Eden Valley fords’ regularity first day, Friday

Aske Hall regularity, near Richmond, Nth Yorks on the first day

Again taken on Sunday, through one of the many by now puddles across the back roads the event uses

I left the house at about five past ten and got about a mile down the road and the misfire returned, I was devastated.

What could be wrong and what can I do? I went back to my local garage where we changed the rotor arm and in the process wiped off some of the silicone grease I’d applied around the distributor to keep the water out, which proved to be a problem later. I drove off down the road but the misfire was still there. I went back and we re-checked the points again, but then I found the coil was burnt at the top so we changed to the spare one, which all rally cars carry.

However, the misfire persisted, so I got a lift back to my house and we took the coil off my other Red 1966 MGB GT. After running the car under load the misfire was still there. In desperation I decided to disconnect the fuel regulator and ‘low and behold’ the misfire stopped.

It was now twelve o’clock and I had done twenty-one miles just driving around, so I set off, intending to call in at Swavesy at the MG Owners’ Club shop to buy a new coil.

I arrived at Swavesy and bought two coils. Then I set off again but after about a mile down the road the rear silencer fell off, it had sheared where the mounting bracket is attached to the boot floor. What a disastrous day this was turning out to be.

The exhaust bracket had come off on the Tulip Rally and had been welded up by a very helpful French garage and had been checked but we all know about speed bumps and low MGBs.

I went straight back to the Club Workshops and despite being very busy they were very helpful and welded on a new bracket, away I went again, my grateful thanks to them. It was now four o’clock in the afternoon and I was still in Cambridgeshire.

I finally got to Slaley Hall at eight thirty in the evening after a long and stressful day.

Next morning it was scrutineering where all the cars are checked and then I went straight to Peter Banham. Peter comes on all the Classic Rally Association rallies and helps out with repairs, keeping the cars going, he is at the start and Main Controls and does a super job.

I explained what had happened and told me to bring the car over to his truck then the famous Bill Price of BMC Competitions fame turned up and asked what’s wrong. Within half an hour a new coil was fitted, plus new points and condenser. After a test drive everything seemed fine and the BGT did not miss a beat all rally and it’s still going well, so I think the fuel regulator was the problem.

The Rally started at five o’clock on the Thursday evening with two tests and two regularities in Slaley forest. The first test was at Slaley Hall Golf Club then the forest then around the Derwent water dam.

Then it was back to Slaley hall for the results of the Prologue as it is called and a start number for the next morning.

We had made up a team of three MGB GTs driven by myself and Nigel, Richard Watton with Michael Kunz, and Tim Lawrence with Carolyn Ward.

On Friday morning the rally started proper with a very good test, then it was off to another test and a couple of regularities we started the morning fourth in class and twenty sixth overall, but half the field had missed a junction but that had cost us a minute. It was soon lunchtime then we set off for more tests and regularities.

We had the supper halt at Warkop army camp then it was a super night section over the roads and forests of the ranges. There was a string of two and four minute sections but the BGT goes very well down lanes and in the forest we dropped eight minutes on the whole section, it was then off to the night halt in Kendal.

Saturday started off dull and wet but soon the sun was out we made our way to Lowther Park for the first test, which was a run around the park. We started the morning third in class, so we had improved in Warkop.

That is one of the great things about this rally, the test venues are fantastic, also the hotels and food.

We then went off to Greystoke Forest for a long regularity where we pulled up a place as our rival made a mistake which is what rallying is all about and we got up to second in class.

There were more excellent tests on the Saturday evening and we were doing well. The night halt was in Glasgow but before we got there we had more regularities and a section to complete.

There was a lovely test around a Castle then straight into regularity with a secret check that could catch you out if you got it wrong.

There was then a section which we cleared, so when we got to Glasgow we were still second in class with three minutes ahead of the MGB that was running. Sunday morning dawned wet with plenty of rain and some flash floods. Again we faced some very good tests with a sting in the tail around a nice forest at the end. However, before that we had a big off, we were going fairly quickly along the road and this forty five degree right hand bend came up and I knew that I could not get around it. I braked and slid off the road towards a couple of boulders, I hit one with the right front wing and became stuck on the muddy grass. A Dutch crew in a MK 1 Escort pulled me out. After I had prised the wing off the front wheel, away we went. At the next main control one of the service cars was on hand to assist and they took a sledgehammer to the wing and knocked it clear of the wheel.

Colin and the trophy

The Finish at the Peebles Hydro Hotel, with Rally Director Jeremy Dickenson, and his wife Jenny

We then had a super test in a forest, then it was a link section, by this time the rain was really coming down and the water was running off the fields and there was flooding. This was when I discovered the consequences of the loss of the silicone grease from my distributor. We negotiated three big flooded areas, the first time we got through but about three hundred yards up the road, the water had seeped through and we stopped. Out came the WD 40 and we were soon on our way. The second time this happened we stopped dead in the midst of the floodwater, neither of us wanted to get out. Nigel reminded me off an old trick, if you ever stall on a railway crossing you can still use your starter motor to get across. We did this in the flood and it worked, put it in first gear and get out on the key, we did this twice and out came the WD 40 again.

Next came a fantastic test on private ground but my tyres did not work very well on wet leaves and I went off again and almost hit a tree.

It was then a fantastic regularity around a forest were we dropped a minute then off to the finish in Peebles we finished second in class and finished 17th overall which was a very good result on a very tough rally.

On the way home the BGT clocked up 60,000 miles since I built her from scratch in 1994, she has done between eighty and a hundred rallies. Two outright wins in class in the championship and has been second in the Championship twice, plus a few class wins and a few top ten overalls, retired about five times. I have to say that this was the most fraught time on a rally that I have had, but she finished and we got home.

My Green BGT is now going to have some TLC and new panels; new sills, wings and spray job, also a new engine gearbox, overdrive and anything else she needs.

She will not do anything until the Tulip next year in the meantime I will do he next three rallies with my Red MGB GT.

Until next time.

Colin Evans

Photos by Tony Large www.tonylarge.net