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Frustrating first event for Tom Cave on Rally Talsi |
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Monday, 19 May 2008 |
Welsh
schoolboy Tom Cave endured a frustrating event on this weekend’s Talsi Rally,
the second round of the 2008 Latvian Rally Championship. Tom and co-driver Gemma
Price were settling well into what the locals regard as the toughest event in
the calendar when they slid wide on one corner and tipped their car into a slow
roll. When the engine failed to restart and with broken front and rear
windscreens, they were forced to retire from the event.
Tom’s first rally in 2008 in
the National Championship started well. The event saw a pair of gravel stages on
Saturday afternoon, followed by two back-to-back runs through the centre of
Talsi town. By the end of the first leg on Saturday evening, Tom and Gemma were
7th in class, less than 10 seconds behind their closest competitor in a Honda
Civic Type R.
However, rain during Saturday
night changed the nature of the event significantly and the stages on Sunday
morning became extremely slippery and rutted, with rocks being dragged out of
the surface into the road.
It was on the day’s sixth stage
that the problem began. Tom slid wide on a medium speed corner 4Km from the
start of the stage and into soft mud at the edge of the road. The day before,
this would have been dry gravel and the chances are the car would simply have
carried on. However, the overnight rain had turned this to mud and it dragged
the car further off the road and into a small ditch by the side of the road.
This caused the car to pitch up
into a slow roll and come to rest on its roof. Both Tom and Gemma were unhurt in
the incident and the passionate Latvian rally fans soon had the Fiesta ST back
on its wheels, with Tom quickly trying to re-start the engine so they could
continue.
However, because the car had been
inverted, the engine oil had run into the top of the engine and fouled the spark
plugs and it refused to restart. Despite their attempts, Tom and Gemma were
forced to retire on the spot, a frustrating end to the first event of their 2008
campaign proper.
“I think we were very unlucky,”
said Tom after the event. “The car got into the mud on the outside of the corner
and was dragged into a small ditch. The sill dug in and pitched us onto the
roof. Some spectators got us back onto our wheels, for which I’m very grateful,
but the plugs were fouled and we decided not to risk the engine any further and
retire.
“Up until that point, things had
been going well. The two town stages were really good fun and we had a very good
rhythm and feeling with the car. But after the rain on Sunday night, the stages
were very tricky. They were quite rutted by the bigger cars in front of us and
there were lots of rocks in the road. But we were settling well into the event
and driving with a finish in mind.
“I feel we were reasonably
competitive without pushing too hard, since experience and a good result were
the targets. But this was one of those situations that could have gone either
way; unfortunately for us this weekend, it went the wrong way. But the car isn’t
too badly damaged and should be fine for the next event in three week’s
time.”
The car itself suffered broken
front and rear windscreens and minor panel damage but nothing that should
prevent it being ready for the next round of the National Championship, the
Cesis Rally on the weekend of 7-8 June.
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