LE JOG

Ice fells Colin’s navigator and robs the BGT crew of a medal

The fourteenth Land’s End to John O’Groats Reliability and Touring Trial or LE JOG took place between Saturday 6th and Tuesday 9th December, 2008. Team MGB has done exceptionally well over the last few years, we have won our class in my BGT once and previously three MGs won the team prize, so for 2008 we decided to put an MG team together again.

My BGT had just come back from winning its class on the Rally of the Tests, so it was sent to the workshop for the usual oil change and spanner check, and came out with a clean bill of health.

Colin and Shon in action on LE JOG taken at the Camelot test on the Sunday morning leg of the rally image by Phil James www.pro-rally.co.uk

I left my home in Ipswich and travelled down to Land’s End to meet up with the other members of the team at The Bosvern Guest House in St Just. Here Team MG met up, myself and Shon Gosling my navigator, Mark Godfrey and Jeff Awde, also Ed Chambers and his son Matt. On Friday it was scrutinnering and all the Team’s cars sailed through.

We started from the Land’s End hotel at 08:35 on Saturday morning. The first test was around the roads of the hotel. Away we went, the first part went well, but then were driving directly into the morning sun and I couldn’t see a thing. When Shon warned me to watch out for a particular rock I could barely make out the road ahead, so it’s not surprising that we didn’t achieve a good time on that test.

After that it was out on the public road, past St Michael’s Mount and away to the first regularity. We did well on that one, then on to another test, after that it was Main Control 2, where we achieved a good time. Off again to face more driving tests, regularities and Main Controls commonly referred to as MCs, as we headed up through North Cornwall and Devon.

We finally got to Test 5 at Bury Ford, this was quite a hard test because we had to go through a deep river and then stop and restart the engine after we had emerged to prove that the car was waterproof. Fortunately, as usual the BGT acquitted itself very well.

We then headed up to MC 5 which was a rest halt at Magor Services on the M4, we had two hours break here to plot the night section and check the car over. The BGT continued to go like a dream, we were now lying eighth overall and third in class while Mark Godfrey was leading, so overall Team MGB were doing very well.

As we left for the night navigation section it was starting to freeze so hard that you could actually see the road glinting with ice, so one had to be very careful. The first section was at Caerwent, an old RAF training camp where we visited all the controls, we continued to progress well.

It was then into Wales and up to the night halt in Runcorn. It was a very tough night navigation section I understand that only eleven cars managed to visit every control and we were one of them.

We started again on Sunday with more tests and regularities, we stopped at some lovely villages where the MCs were located. As I have observed before, if I didn’t take part in rallying I would never see these wonderful secluded places. One of the Controls was at Tan Hill located in the highest pub in the UK; the pub is featured in the Everest double-glazing advert, it was very snowy and icy up there. The pub even had an ex army tracked vehicle on site complete with their logo on the side, which really intrigued me.

After Tan Hill it was down the Dales in the snow through more regularities to the night stop in Carlisle.

After a good night’s sleep it was time to set off again. As I checked the oil and the radiator I found that I was a bit down on Forelife fluid so I topped it up. I realised that I’d used more that usual, so made a quick a check around the head gasket area and the thermostat housing. To my horror it was all pink, it was obvious that I had a coolant leak. I went straight to the support crew who are based at every major MC and asked them to take a look, as we were due out in ten minutes. They said that it was the thermostat gasket and they’d change it at Fort William, they tightened the nuts and I kept a watchful eye on the temperature gauge all morning.

The first test on Monday morning was an Autotest in a car park. By this time Team MGB were well on course for the top award. Mark and Jeff were leading, we were eight overall and Ed and Matt were 14th, so we had a very comfortable margin. In fact we were so far ahead that even if we had a problem and only visited the Main Controls at our scheduled times we would still be able to win.

We went into Scotland and were still going really well as we stated the next regularity and found the second placed Alfa Romeo in a ditch. We stopped and tried to pull him out but couldn’t, so gained another place. We arrived at the next control right on time but couldn’t go any further because Robert and Susan McClean in their P100 Rover had spun on the ice and blocked the road.

Shon and I walked up to the Rover to see if we could help. Then I made my way back to the MG to talk to the marshals while we waited for the recovery truck to arrive.

Suddenly Sue McClean came running up saying we must call an Ambulance as Shon who had been trying to push the Rover had slipped on the ice and knocked himself unconscious, he was out for about four minutes. He would have to be taken to hospital and there was no way I could continue without a navigator, so our rally was over.

Warren and Jean Chmura in their big Citroen DS took Shon to the nearest hospital. All I could do was to follow on, wait for news and hope that he would be alright. Eventually after checks and observation he was allowed to leave hospital and I took him straight home. Where I’m pleased to report, Shon is recovering well.

The Citroen Team got the top award and amongst the Gold Medal winners was the crew of Mark Godfrey and Geoff Awde in their 1965 MGB who not only collected less penalties than any other crew but also picked up the awards for best performance on the tests and on the regularities, showing that they were by far the best performing crew on the event.

The Chmuras also got the spirit of the rally award for taking Shon to hospital. As for my MGB GT she did not let me down and ran reliably throughout the event. We almost made it in 2008 but now we will have to wait until the next time.