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Stage snippetts 

• Brothers Colin & James Beckett in their Skoda Favorit had the honour of getting the 2008 Pirelli MSA Gravel Rally Championship underway by heading the reverse-seeded field through the now-traditional opening Bournemouth Winter Gardens stage. Despite being a late entry, they returned to the finish ramp 50^th and last of all finishers, nearly half an hour behind winner Marcus Dodd!

• Loudest cheer of the opening night went to the aggressively spectacular Land Rover Discovery of Andy Drummond and Jon Chester who spared none of the horses around the 1.6 mile town centre stage.

• First casualty of Rallye Sunseeker was the Peugeot 106 of Mark Gamble and Steve Link whose engine let go whilst warming the car up prior to MC1. Also going out on the opening night was the MG Metro 6R4 of Craig Bennett and Alan Shilladay when the wiring loom caught fire and then the Land Rover of Rob Harford and Jon Boughton suffered gearbox failure on SS1 also.

• Jon Ingram was forced to tackle the two tarmac tests on worn gravel tyres as the tarmac rims for his Subaru WRC hadnt arrived in time and then he was involved in some confusion over a start time which saw him leave the start line some 30 seconds early after being incorrectly counted down, he alleged, which led to the imposition of a one minute jump start time penalty. Had he not had that, hed have finished on the podium

• Sky Sports TV Presenter Caroline Samuels usually has a drama or two on each ANCRO event and her latest was a plea for assistance. No, shed not forgotten her notes, or the cameraman hadnt turned up, or her PLP boss Andrew Marriott hadnt finally been sectioned with Gazza, instead she announced shed forgotten her. Contact Lens solution! Luckily, ANCRO photographer Mark Simpson came to the damsels rescue   

• After the provisional results were posted, it was revealed that 12th placed Irishman Keith Cronin had incurred a one minute penalty for clocking into the final stage early so as a result, he dropped a couple of places.

• Welshman Julian Reynolds was celebrating his 40th birthday on Sunseeker, on his fourth attempt and as a result, ran at number four on the road and to cap it all, he retired on stage. Nine. We knew the sequence would end somewhere

• Jody Bowcott and Steve McPhee took victory in the Subaru Group N Trophy with David Bogie and Kevin Rae winning the Mitsubishi Lancer Evo Challenge class  

• Two Sunseeker regulars were missing this year. Steve Perez was still recovering from injuries sustained on the Safari Rally last year and Paul Bird was in Qatar with his new World Superbike Team. The nett results were that profits in the local restaurants were well down and FYEO reported poor takings as the expensive champagne (which the loser usually pays for) was left unopened Nik Elsmore and Jon Ingram were spotted in a certain club, but were last seen failing miserably

"Im a happy boy David Bogie is reasonably pleased with his start to the event

Im so under-geared; Im just waiting for the car to blow up Luckily for Andrew Burton, his hybrid Peugeot Cosworth held out although to hear it flat out, screaming for mercy on the long Mount Ararat straights, it made you wonder how 

My hearts going twenty to the dozen now, I cant concentrate Elder statesman Warren Philliskirk after a pretty young lady came and made her intentions known as the crews queued up for SS2.

"I shouldnt tell you this but most of our problems have been down to driver error Stephen Petchs co driver Michael Wilkinson is now looking for a new seat for the remainder of 2008

Stress is for steelRichard Cathcarts co driver, Martin Brady offers some advice to his fellow competitors

Im going to have a lot of grey hairs by the end of the season if this is anything to go by The ever lamentable Nik Elsmore is in for a tough season.

Im definitely doing the Border Counties in the Mitsubishi After winning the opening round of the MREC, Bogie Junior will leave the Toyota Corolla WRC hed planned to use in the garage that weekend

David is not going to know where to look Bogies mum Anne at the finish ramp with the FYEO girls, and she was right

The wife arranged a 50th birthday celebration for me a year early and I was so shocked, I've been confused ever since! Henry Richardson in mitigation when seeing if he qualified for the Old Farts Award 

I was fastest through the sandy bits It wasnt all bad news for Jon Ingram on gravel tyres on the sea front

The old skills are coming back Charlie Payne returns to the fold after a couple of seasons out.

Tristan heard the call wrong and now I have a sore arm Kirsty Riddick bemoans the fact that Mr Pyes destiny with a tree on SS5 was the difference between a Left 3 and a Left 8

"We are the Isle of Wight Junior Rally Team Will Nicholls and Nick Broom, both in dispute over their ages when registering, wanting to tick the junior categories boxes

Just a short note to register ANCRO's thanks to everyone for their hard work in both preparing the 2008 Pirelli MSA Gravel Rally Championship during the past months ready for this weekend's competitive launch, and then delivering the product in such a friendly but equally professional way across all areas from signing-on through to results. We have already received much positive feed back, registration numbers are strong and it looks like we should be in for an exciting season.

Turning specifically to Rallye Sunseeker, to Rick and the whole of the organising team, congratulations, you should feel justifiably proud of a first class event. Also as an ANCRO member, thank you for providing such a strong benchmark for the championship. I do hope you agree that by working together we have all seen benefits.

Best regards

Keith Ashley

Chairman   

The lights are ON in Bournemouth!

Returning to the scene of our early retirements on the last three attempts, Rod (Bennett) and I (Walkers Garage Fiat Punto S1600, Car 52) were well pleased to finish the weekends Rallye Sunseeker!  No senior moments with forgotten light switches in the dark this year as I had a reminder at the top of my first page of notes, alongside the regular one to check that the extinguishers were armed! 

The traditional blast through Bournemouth town centres Winter Gardens and along the sea front was enjoyed by both crew, resulting in an overnight lead for class A6 of some ten seconds. It seems some of the rally supporters on the pier head were impressed too!  We called in the restaurant there, after the stage, to meet up with our own service crew for some food.

Our Hero

Fresh from the competition and still wearing my fireproof overalls, I was promptly mobbed by a group of 20 something year old girls out on the town for a party! Are you a rally driver? Weve just been watching you? they shouted enthusiastically.  No, Im a co-driver.  This is my driver here. says me, all innocent like. What does a co-driver actually do then?  I tried to explain a little of timing, stopwatches and pace notes. Never mind, can we have a photo with you, we LOVE rally drivers!  Next thing I knew I was being hugged by two beautiful damsels while their mates took snaps with their phone cameras  If Id known it was this much help when pulling Id have worn my overalls while out clubbing years ago!  Methinks their regular diet of teenagers in Saxos and Corsas with massive stereos but puny brakes and nothing under the bonnet must have left these girls feeling a little unsatisfied.

OTL - by one year

Back to the job in hand on Saturday then, into the woods of Uddens and Ringwood for some proper forest racing!  Rod and I were both relieved to get through stage three and at least break our duck on this event, especially after never having made stage four here since 2003. The stage finish of Shannon was manned by Guildford Motor Club, my old club for many years when I lived in Surrey.  Mark Feeney leans in through window on the stop line to inform us: Youre OTL, mate, by one year as you should have been here a year ago!  Actually he was quite right!  Pity this would become our bogey stage on the final run.

For the first loop we were running fairly steady, while Rod kept the Punto on a short leash to get accustomed to the behaviour of the new front suspension following radically altered spring rates and damper settings since our test outing as course car on the Riponian Rally. The verdict at first service was Now weve got the front end doing what we want it to do, we just need to get the rear end sorted! Then the rear brakes decided enough was enough and ceased functioning!  Rather than assisting our pace, this slowed us noticeably, as we could no longer rely on left foot braking to settle the rear of the car over crests, nor utilise the handbrake for hairpins, which dropped us a further few handfuls of seconds over the final two stages of the first loop.

Wide-eyed and brakeless

Ive likened the characteristics of this car to a Jack Russell terrier on speed!  You have to keep a tight control or itll bolt off down the nearest rabbit hole in the blink of an eye! We let it out on a slightly longer leash for the middle loop of stages through the Wareham complex to the extent I was starting to get wide-eyed whenever I looked up through the fast and flowing Gore Heath stage, impressed by Rods commitment and hold over the little car through sections like 100 Easy Left, 60, Fast Medium Right over Crest, 40 Medium Left and the like.  Better keep my head down and get a firm hold on the notes then! For the first time that day, we started to compare times, rather than concentrate solely on exploring the behaviour of our still new car. Wed been swapping seconds with the Peugeot 206 of Andrew Coley and Dan Pearce, our class rivals in A6 which culminated in setting an identical time of 6:23.0 on the second run through the Somerley Park/Turbo Dynamics stage, where the long big dipper straight calls for total commitment as you approach the front of Somerley house at maximum revs in 6th.  We still held on to that class lead gained on Friday night though.

What noise?

Everyone tells us that this car sounds awesome in the forests!  Not that we can hear it mind!  With helmets on, all you can hear from inside the car is the transmission and the sound of rocks hitting the floor as the tyres fight the battle for grip. Into the penultimate stage, 11 miles through the loops and crests of Plumley/Ringwood for a second time.  Just as we go into the stage, we see a fellow Riponian competitor attacking the high-tech steering wheel of their Mitsubishi WRC with a 3lb blacksmith's lump hammer! So much for the super high tech stuff?  Or is this just a "Yorkshire screwdriver"? Half way through the stage, I hear Damn! Backs gone again or some Anglo-Saxon equivalent to that as Rod grabs the handbrake for a Hairpin Right, and nothing!  We drop three seconds to the hard charging Mr Coley as a result.  Can we hold on over the 4.2 miles of Shannon 2?  We try everything we can with no rear brakes, then half way through the rear-end grip starts to get wild, so we are forced to back off to stay on the road.  We suspected a deflating tyre, confirmed as a punctured right rear at the finish line.  11 seconds dropped to the charging Mr Coley. At Parc Ferme before the finish back in Bournemouth centre, we both rush to be the first to congratulate the 206s crew for a fine drive; theyve just taken the class lead from us by four seconds.  Such is rallying! 

Some mousse would be useful, but its not allowed!

Some more development work to complete before the Border Counties then!

Henry Flintstone Richardson

P.S. My Ramblings were so long because:

a) "This is going to be a long letter, as I don't have time to compose a short one" - Oscar Wilde

b) Keith Oswin always told me it was easier to edit down someone else's crap than invent words yourself.....