TRACKROD FOREST STAGES 2021
If you had told me that this weekend’s Trackrod Forest Stages were going to be so much drama, I might have stayed at home!
Just kidding.
I can’t resist an adventure!
From breaking a driveshaft on Friday afternoon after scrutiny, trailering the car back to the workshop near Hull and then putting in an all-nighter to fix the car, to the engine letting go with a massive bang in Langdale I think you can say we had a bit of a testing weekend!
To get to the start at all was a huge achievement and we could not have done it without the support and help of all our friends who truly rallied round when it was needed.
Our fantastic decals were designed by yours truly and not only produced for us by Allister and Carrie of Getclobbered., but they did a 120 mile round trip to fit them for us on Thursday night after I messed it up!
When we bust the driveshaft our friend Neil came and towed the stranded Evo back to the trailer park, so I could take it back to the workshop while Andy took my car and went to fetch a driveshaft from somewhere.
We owe a massive debt of thanks to Michael and Mark from the Alexandra Hotel Hull, who brought bacon sandwiches, fixed CV joints in the middle of the night and then helped us put everything back together at 4 a.m.
We want to thank all the marshals running the trailer park who must have been amused by all our comings and goings! It looked like most of Beverley & District Motor Club were in charge of the trailer park, which was a good thing for us as they helped us load and unload VIL several times! Thank you especially Roger, Marc and Ryan.
We get all our motorsport equipment through Rob at Clubman Motorsport and not only does Rob supply us with our kit but he’s a good friend who came to our rescue time and time again over the weekend. On his way back from co-driving in Dalby on Friday night, Rob dropped into our unit at about 12:30 to help me get VIL off the trailer and onto the ramp. Most people would have just gone home!
Then when we were stuck in Langdale he offered to come and fetch us to get us back to the van and trailer, and ended up towing VIL back to the trailer park for us from Ebberstone.
We would not have got to Ebberstone without first being towed from the end of Langdale by the awesome marshals from post 15. Thanks so much to Martin and Kathy who towed us with the new car (practicing for the RAC!) and to Adrian and all the others who got VIL turned round so Rob could drag us back to Filey.
Thanks so much to the team at Carbon Positive Motorsport, who helped us to offset our carbon emissions for the fuel we used for the event.
Finally thanks to Paul Wildbore, Neil Holland and gang for kicking the tyres in service, to Matny for offering to lend us David’s bits next time we break something, and to Lesley and John for minding Timo the rally dog, who had to stay home for this one.
Despite all the trauma, we really did enjoy driving VIL. It would have been better to have done more than a couple of miles in her before starting an event though!
We needed more seat time to get used to the speed and the clicky box, as we were a bit all over the place compared to our usual calm rally style! VIL certainly is a bit of a handful but very fast when it’s all going well.
To summarise, our times were crap, but fun was had.
I also want to personally thank Craig at OnThePaceNote for the chat before the event and for the notes which were mint. I’m sure I’ve missed a few thank you’s but it’s not intentional, thanks once again everyone who helped 👍 the rally family did us proud ❤️🙏
Photo thanks to Adam Wordsworth