Rally of Wales
Tom Bowen from the MG Rally Scholarship starts a new season
My season did not get off to the flying start that I had hoped it would. Before the rally begins each rally car has to go through sound testing and scrutineering. The sound test went perfectly but our troubles started at scrutineering. The scrutineer alerted us to the fact our fire extinguisher was empty even though it had never been used and there were no signs of discharge and we thought what on earth are we going to do? We then had to rush back to the service park and find a way of sorting this out, otherwise we were going to be out before we started. We asked around some of the other teams to see what could be done, and the only solution was to find another fire extinguisher that was exactly the same. Fortunately we were helped by two other MG teams and we managed to scrape through scrutineering. Our relief was enormous and we had found that the legend of the camaraderie in rallying to be true.
A long way to roll even in a rally prepared ZR
The first stage of the rally was 18 miles of Dyfi forest in the heart of the Welsh mountains. I had a really great feeling for the car and really felt very positive for the start of the stage. During the stage I put in all my newly learnt skills from Martin Rowe (the former British Rally Champion) into practice. It all was going really well, all was flowing and seemed to be brilliant. I was catching up with the car that started before us, and I thought we must be doing rather well. Just over a third of the way into the stage we came into some very narrow tight hairpin sections. I had been getting quite tight lines through these bends to launch the car through the tighter corners. Unfortunately I used this tactic on a very nasty hairpin right. I got the car very side ways due to the very adverse camber and it flung me to the side of the road. Peter and I found ourselves teetering on the side of a small cliff, and the car slowly but surely went over the side rolling three times down a fifty foot drop and finally came to rest against a tree.
Once we had come to a stop (it didn’t seem to want to end) it was amazing how secure I was inside the car. We were on our side and I was still in the same seating position I was in moments ago. It is testament to the safety equipment that neither Peter nor I were hurt whatsoever. Last season I never used to tighten my belts fully to give myself some freedom. When I had my tuition day with Martin Rowe he said I must correct my seating position and belt tightness, or in a crash I would be very badly injured. Thank goodness I had listened to that important advice! It was a very frightening experience, the first time myself or Peter had been through one of the worst things in rallying, a roll. We got ourselves out of the car and alerted the following competitors that we were ok, even though you couldn’t see our poor little MG.
This is where the professionalism and organisation from the marshals and safety teams kicked in. They were alerted to our plight through their constant vigilance and we were able to get away and off the stage and waited to be picked up by our crew. All the emergency services like the ambulance, fire services and recovery crews are volunteers (for example those who helped us were from Reading) and all the marshals are volunteers.
We had to wait two and a half hours for the stage to finish. The reason being was that the first stage was also used again for the last stage later on in the afternoon. Once the last car had being through and the course car had closed off the stage we were then allowed to start the heroic recovery of my rally car. We were amazed at the skill of the recovery crew using their Nissan pickup and winch to haul the MG out of the nearly vertical drop.
Another rescue crew came to help to take away some of the stress from the other vehicle. Earlier they had pulled out one of the Land Rover cup cars and whilst helping us his winch burned out and all he could do was provide ballast while the other crew winched the car up. We stood back in amazement for about an hour watching this process.
During the recovery there was almost another incident. A Focus WRC car that had gone off earlier and had managed to get back on the stage was becoming impatient with the recovery crew and saying that it was taking too long and being generally unpleasant. He then proceeded to turn around and, did a hand brake turn and very nearly did the same thing as me.
The marshals then informed the stage commander of this encounter who reported this to Rally HQ. The reason he was so upset to hear this, was that all these volunteers do such a good job in their spare time and often using their own equipment so there was no reason to become unpleasant. In the meantime a large group of people had gathered and helped us push the stricken MG onto our trailer with some ingenious winching from the recovery crew. All that was left to do was the three and a half hour journey back to Oxfordshire.
Expert recovery in action
The day was incredibly demoralising. However I am determined to make a clean start for the next round. I was very heartened by how kind and considerate the rally organisers and other competitors were. We are not sure how bad the damage is to the MG but we will have it ready for the next round. I am so glad my Dad decided to insure the body shell for the event, because we were not sure whether to or not because of cost. The next round is the Pirelli up in Carlisle on the 21st May and I look forward to giving a much more positive report.