Being that we knew relatively little about the event, we found the night before that we were actually quite far from the start of the rally and had to be up early to get out to the first stage in time. We made it in plenty of time and got a good parking spot really close to the spectator area.
Up on a good vantage point we managed to get a view down a long straight into a fast left from a good high vantage point. We watched all the Minis through from here, but decided it wasn't really close enough to the action.
Now we're talking. Gwyndaf Evans here is about 6ft from where I'm stood and on about the same level. When I imagine all the angles I'll get of an event, this is the sort of thing I think about. Once past the end of the official spectator area there seems to be very little restriction on where you can stand. I imagine if I was jumping in front of cars I might get in a bit of trouble, but otherwise no one seemed to mind. Looking at old footage of rallies it seems like this has always been the case, but it's hard to imagine in today's health and safety landscape.
Although I can appreciate the off-road heritage Porsche has developed over the years, it feels more like a gimmick than anything; taking sports cars and lifting them, putting on a big tyre and rallying them. It's like a "what's the most unlikely rally car we can do" sort of situation where someone might make a lifted MX5 or Ferrari or something daft, and despite their apparent success I've never gotten on with it. The same forumla that works so well for other road cars like Escorts, Lancers, 131s, etc... doesn't seem to fit as well when the car is so sporty already. This one, however, was beautiful sliding along the slimy Welsh gravel and the soud of the flat-6 was a nice break from the cacophony of inline 4's.
I think this Abarth ended up winning, I was just surprised to see one in real life.
Drivers were really throwing the cars around through here. Whenever I think I'm getting better at cornering on the road, wathcing a bit of rally will humble me right back down to earth.
There's about 3 hours between this photo and the previous one, but it was such bad weather I didn't really get the camera out. We finished at the first stage and eventually made plans to get across to the second location and spend the time getting a good spot somewhere along the course to get settled in before the rest of the crowd arrived. As we pulled into the second location the cars challenging for the rally were leaving and we spent a lot of time making very little progress along a single track road to get parked. Once we'd landed and made sure the car wasn't going to slide into a particularly fetid looking drainage ditch, we walked along the track out to a good little complex of corners. Underneath a thick canopy we found a slightly raised, dry spot to sit and watch cars go by, with easy access to another vantage point above the preceding corner atop a small bank. Once the cars started coming through we found a lower spot, nice and close to the road where you could really feel the speed of the cars coming through.
I don't know if there's something about the setup of this car or if these Vauxhalls are just trickier to drive than the Fords, but this driver was consistently getting it loose. Even on this relatively shallow corner the back end started getting away from them.
We spent most of our time in the trees, but once we felt we'd seen enough from there, we walked just down the road (not on the road but through a very dense packing of firs) to our next spot. We were stood on the outside of a corner but protected by a tall bank and quite a deep drop just in front of it. Once the rain got heavier, however, the cars started getting more and more out of line and had more trouble getting around the corner with all the speed they'd carried in the first part of the day.
There's the deep ditch protecting us from any stray Escorts that might not make the corner.
Good to see some Yorkshire representation this far from home. It would be perfect if there were some events closer to us that might make it a bit easier to nip along to.
People are getting wider and wider each time and the little streams running down the ruts are becoming deeper and wetter. This MK1 had a bit of trouble slowing it down enough for this corner, but managed to loose the back end enough to slide around. It's about this point we're deciding to move, and start putting camera gear away. I hear another car coming and, having not stood and just watched one pass without the camera as a buffer for a little while, decide to get up on top of the bank and really soak it in. It's another MK1 coming fast into the corner, getting about as sideways as we've seen them all day and covering us in mud. As we're stood dripping with what was once a road, a flash of MK2 goes past and grazes the bank, seeming to struggle to get going through the second part of the corner, but we're paying attention to getting back under the trees.
Drying off under the now leaking canopy there's steam lifting from near the roadside - it's a wheel. The MK2 struggling along managed to maintain enough speed to hit a root, almost exactly where we'd been stood, and rip the driver's side wheel off, taking with it the rotor and caliper which are now sitting about as still as any part of that car must have ever sat on the inside of the corner. Although the cars must be relatively light, the assembly as found feels heavier than my road car wheels and it takes a bit of pulling to get it into the trees and off the road. Not knowing how hot the wheel itself might be we leave it cooling in the rain until everything else has passed. We plan to roll it out onto the outside of the corner where none of the cars have been so that the sweeper car can collect it on its lap, but someone shouts us from up the road.
We help the co-driver carry the wheel back to a very sorry looking car, apparently the owner is most concerned about the caliper but its completely knackered and there's a large chunk of the casting missing, presumably still attached to the knuckle on the car. One wheel lighter but £10 heavier we're on the way back up home. If all the rallies are like this I'll be back every weekend!
Sunday we're enjoying the view from the aquaduct over a starkly different sunny day, the first real day of Spring. Having admired rally driving for so long it feels so right to come and see one finally, and I can't wait to get back out for more.