2022 UK Targa/Road Rallying Thread

2022 UK Targa/Road Rallying Thread

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thepawbroon

Original Poster:

1,146 posts

183 months

Tuesday 15th March 2022
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A couple of action shots from Bramley smile





28hodge

43 posts

75 months

Tuesday 15th March 2022
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Nice pics, though Jesus it looks like the grip levels were greasy and low, that horrible damp sheen and all the tarmac packed with mud and moss, looks like an invitation to understeer off into some scenery at every opportunity.

We have the Shaw trophy Targa this weekend on the 20th and I am really looking forward to it, have done nothing since I think either the Ilkley Jubilee or TOC in 2019 whichever was later in the year, We did 3 tests on the first devils lockdown tests in 2020 before a rad fan broke on the mini so I'm not really counting that.

Venue looks amazing, and a day of this awaits us.


thepawbroon

Original Poster:

1,146 posts

183 months

Tuesday 15th March 2022
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28hodge said:
Nice pics, though Jesus it looks like the grip levels were greasy and low, that horrible damp sheen and all the tarmac packed with mud and moss, looks like an invitation to understeer off into some scenery at every opportunity.
A very accurate description! There were 2 or 3 event-ending offs, and we had two big moments when I overestimated the grip.... a couple more to show the surfaces:





Good luck on the Shaw Trophy, let us know how you get on.

28hodge

43 posts

75 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2022
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We had the Shaw trophy rally on Sunday, it was a great event that was only let down by being set up a little to tight, and by the fact the land owner of the plantation it was in wanted to limit the amount of roads the organiser could use. This was because it was the first time they had used this land for a targa and the landowner didn't want excessive damage done to the smooth gravel tracks, as such this was a tester.

These two things combined to cause quite a lot of cutting up of the tracks, even though we were all limited to std road pattern tyres only.

Because of the limited mileage they had allowed to be used and the fact the club wanted to give tests of a decent length/time there was only 2 tests run 3 times in the morning each and then 3 times in the afternoon in reverse each, test one was circa 3min 30 to 4min 30 with test 2 circa 5min30 to 6min30 dependent on your ability.

This meant each test would see approx 294 passes each all on gravel where the surface was dressed with maybe 20-30 mm sized stone with a sub-base below of 5-10mm gravel.

I think it was quite tight, as in the cones moved the apex of a nice open 90 right that would have been nice a flowing and somewhere near 30mph mid corner speed 2nd gear nicking 3rd on the exit (so rightly to stay in targa regs of an avg speed of 30) required slowing down with a cone. However I think the cone was pushed too far to the outside with them placed about 5-6ft from the outer edge of the track, as such this created the need to brake and handbrake round then hard accelerate away from a hairpin and this dug deep ruts on every corner, my 205 is set up reasonably high, the sump guard wash dragging in a lot of locations. in a few locations where there wasn't a cone on a corner or some sections that let us use a more sweeping line round a series of 3 cones through a bus stop type set up the degradation to the track was far less.

I really hope these two miscalculations by the landowner in not providing a little more mileage so limiting the number of passes and allowing a couple more test locations,. And then the organiser creating such a tight route hasn't put the landowner off allowing more events to be run in the plantation, as this was a test event really to see how things went.

Also I am in no way knocking the organiser, we really really enjoyed the event and would be back to an event by them tomorrow. I just hope the landowner isn't/wasn't put off as some of the ruts were really deep. they cut a section out of the shorter of the tests that was getting impassable for some of the older smaller cars like the minis on the afternoon loop.

Our day went well, to a point. My brother hasn't done much really, couple 12 cars with me as a shakedown for this car (they haven't gone well, car been fine navigator struggling on the maps) and one other targa, with his mate where i marshalled as I hadn't got the car complete.

Anyway the fact we were at car 38, it was all on gravel and the navigating was simple, as in 90 round a cone and there wasn't multiple cones close to each other, meant that we did correct tests all day, as I could see the route a lot of the time from the tracks in the gravel. The only dodgy moments we had was were we were on open track round sweeping bends so fir the later runs I put a pacenote, as in medium fast left, on them or a caution.

The final corner of test 2,4,6 was a open 180 wide downhill right, a lot of fun was had on this corner!

Up to lunch we were going well and despite it being rougher on each pass our times were coming down nicely, I was a bit annoyed with nudging 2 cones on the second loop, one in test 3 and another in test 4, both with the front inside corner as I nipped it to tight on the handbrake, I never ran them over just nudged them, and then got a bit greedy on the brakes for a stop astride and went past it by a metre so had to reverse, then to make it worse, sodding stalled and it wasn't keen on starting, not ideal! and actually was a foreshadowing of problems to come after lunch!!






Big thanks and all credits for the pics go to CWL Rally Pictures

Edited by 28hodge on Thursday 24th March 08:06

velocemitch

3,795 posts

219 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2022
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Interesting report, I’d heard elsewhere about the multiple passes, recipe for disaster is that, especially with a new venue and a sensitive land owner. I do hope they can pacify the landowners. It’s hard enough getting venues without loosing them after one event.

My last outing on the Tour of Cheshire in the R5 was a bit of damp squib, a couple of daft mistakes by me ruined the result, though Clive was happy enough with his day out and set some competitive times on the tests.

Next De Lacy 12 Car tomorrow night with by Brother in the Corsa, we are the only experts entered, so the only ones on plot and bash, the rest get the route the day before. It’s going to be something of a Challenge!

thepawbroon

Original Poster:

1,146 posts

183 months

Wednesday 23rd March 2022
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That's a great write up 28Hodge, many thanks. Yes as mentioned above, venues are very tricky.

I've been involved with organising the Mull Targa in the past, the first year we had a variety of private owners and the relationships w.r.t. damage and repairs were complex. Subsequently we used almost exclusively Forestry Commission roads - although there is significantly more paperwork involved, and you need to be with them a year ahead, once the permit is signed off, everything is clear.

As for competing, I had entered a Bexley LCC 12 car rally this Friday and was looking forward to driving in Kent for the first time. But I've come down with Covid so have to stay home for a few days.

28hodge

43 posts

75 months

Thursday 24th March 2022
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Up to lunch we were going well and despite it being rougher on each pass our times were coming down nicely, I was a bit annoyed with nudging 2 cones on the second loop, one in test 3 and another in test 4, both with the front inside corner as I nipped it to tight on the handbrake, I never ran them over just nudged them, and then got a bit greedy on the brakes for a stop astride and went past it by a metre so had to reverse, then to make it worse, sodding stalled and it wasn't keen on starting, not ideal! and actually was a foreshadowing of problems to come after lunch!!

Lunch after the first 3 loops of 2 tests each repeated meant we were halfway through. The sun was blazing and although the air temp it was cold outside in the car with the sun coming through the windscreen it was lovely. I had been suffering with a cold and feeling cold for a couple days before so the warmth was very welcome. However I was feeling pretty rubbish at lunch as I hadn’t had a great nights sleep and as said was suffering from a cold. As such I maybe lacked a bit of enthusiasm to check the car over quite a thoroughly as I should.

We gave the car a very quick once over, I checked and put a couple hundred ml of oil into it but other than that all was/or seemed to be ok. Lunch was meant to be an hour, but seemed to be nearer 2 to be honest. I Think they did a bit of grading of some of the more severe ruts but I am not sure.

We hadn’t looked at the results during the morning so as to avoid getting sucked into trying to hard and doing something stupid. But a quick look at lunch and we were going OK, 3rd in class and 25th O/A. I was a little annoyed though, one for the 3 daft errors I had made with my driving, nudging 2 cone and the stop astride then stall and struggle to restart. My errors, my faults, but cost us in total approx. 35secs.

The other annoyance was that somehow, Historic Novice cars, which was our class had gotten seeded at cars 8 & 9. Not sure how they got seeded that far up but they were benefitting from far smoother roads than us 30 cars further back!

You could tell it had benefitted them as on loops 1 & 2 they were a couple seconds faster than us, but come loop 3 where it was rough for all we’d beaten them by a good few seconds!

Anyway all that was nearly irrelevant, as after sitting around for nigh on 2 hours enjoying the sun and warmth I fired the car up for loop 4 and the first of the tests in reverse, only it didn’t want to start, it turned over for quite a while but wouldn’t catch. The car has always had a little issue with the ignition, if you rotate the key all the way round, it’ll never start, you have to let it rotate anti clockwise a couple degrees and then it’ll catch, I’d always put this down to a quirk, more to come on this later!

It eventually caught, but sounded like a tractor!! The exhaust had come apart at the joint under the car, Bother or summat like that was said! Anyway quickly put back together in the queue out of MTC2 and transport to T7 which was the longer test run in reverse, and all was fine, so off we went to see how we got on.

The test appeared to me to be a bit smoother and we went well, set a good time and a good 12 seconds quicker than 2nd in class,

Now this is where our day started to go downhill and we ran into issues, remember that ignition quirk. Sat in the queue for T8 a car a couple ahead of us slid off in the test, we were next but one to go into the test, but turned the car off so as to avoid it getting hot. And the ignition and key felt really odd when I turned it.

I tried to turn the key to start the car, the ignition would come on but it wouldn't crank at all, I suspected that the ignition barrel had failed, the marshalls said they’d bump us into the test if needed so we weren’t screwed but something with the ignition barrel was causing problems. Low and behold just as the marshalls were about to bump us the the ignition worked and she started up.

T8 the reverse of the shorter test was very rough, especially in one spot where it was dragging the belly of the car and really we just went through that section sensible to make sure we didn’t completely belly out. Then we had our only nav issue on the tests all day, I heard head left we were flat in 3rd at a guess and I was looking for a cone, couldn’t see one and had about 300yrds till the t junction at the top of the road where I presumed there was a cone to head left. Errr no

My error as there wasn’t a cone just a left dogleg into a bus stop type section. By the time I had realised that I wasn’t looking for a cone and just an oblique left, I was too fast and to committed to going straight, so anchored on, sailed past the left fully locked up. Banged it in reverse, got caught out by the paddle clutch and stalled, and guess what, the ignition barrel didn’t want to work. About 20 attempts with the key and finally it worked and started us up, reversed and finished the test. However about 200yrds from the end the starter and ignition barrel all started to have a fit. The starter jammed on and smoke started to emerge from all over the place.

I am not the greatest electrician but I do know that when the smoke starts coming out of the wires then its very hard to get it back in again!!
We got to the stop astride at the finish, then knocked off the master switch and bailed out to shove it out the way of the test end.

A quick look round, I had seen smoke out of the dash and binnacle and my brother had seen it from the bonnet. Having stopped for couple minutes nothing appeared to be on fire and the ignition was working but there was no getting the starter to turn.

Wanting to avoid a retirement, we managed to bump it and get it going so we went back to the MTC to see what we could do.

My brother was very keen on smashing bits of trim and hotwiring all sorts of things, however as the ignition itself was fine and the car seemed to be running fine once started, the problems appeared to be more the cranking phase of the ignition barrel and now thanks to the antics at the end of T8 likely the starter motor and wiring to it that seemed to have gone all “French” on us, I was more inclined to see if we could either just keep it running and hope the queues and waits for the tests weren’t too bad, or bump it if we need to.

So we handed the timecard in at the end of loop 4 having lost approx. 20seconds thanks to the stall and went round to the start of loop 5. The MTC out was on a hill handily.

T9 went fine and again another decent time but I was driving the car nicely now as I think the old girl really only wanted a half day out, up to lunch it had run great, after lunch, not so much!

T10 was a repeat of T8 and appeared to be where all our bad luck would occur as again we had an issue. The queue for the stage was big but on a hill so starting for the stage was not a problem. They had also cut out the really horrendously deep rough section so that was good. The car cutting out (I think the ignition got jolted by a bit bump and turned the key slightly knocking it off) was less good, and although we were rolling along and at a decent speed the ignition must have been in the wrong position as it wouldn’t bump. So we came to a stop just before a chicane round 2 cones after a downhill hairpin right.

We hopped out shoved it out the way then bumped it again, hopped back in, reversed back 20yrds to the cone went round the chicane as we should and then drove to the test end. We didn’t get penalised for a wrong test thankfully but did drop 1min.40secs to it.

Before the test we were told that they were only going to run the longer test on the last loop so that thankfully was the last run through T8-10 as T12 was cancelled. So as we only had one test left we decided to carry on and finish.

T11 was forgettable, the queue waiting for it was massive prob about 25 secs, and then we struggled bumping it and when we did, the exhaust came apart at the clamp again, so we just drove through the stage at a reasonable pace but were 25secs slower than our previous best!

Ah well we finished and got 3rd in class. and spent 56mins on gravel tests.








Edited by 28hodge on Thursday 24th March 13:18


Edited by 28hodge on Thursday 24th March 13:21

velocemitch

3,795 posts

219 months

Saturday 26th March 2022
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De Lacy 12 Car went well, 1st overall, 10 minutes ahead.

Tricky little event with some awkward navigation handouts and hard to find route checks.

That’s three events and two wins, pretty good start to the year.
It would be nice to follow it next weekend on the North Yorkshire Classic, but that’s an entirely different ball game!

velocemitch

3,795 posts

219 months

Saturday 2nd April 2022
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North Yorkshire Classic tomorrow. All scrutineered and ready.


Kevin7653

4 posts

24 months

Friday 8th April 2022
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Anyone have a link to the targa car regulations for 2022 been hearing of different little changes to them thanks in advance

thepawbroon

Original Poster:

1,146 posts

183 months

Friday 8th April 2022
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Kevin7653 said:
Anyone have a link to the targa car regulations for 2022 been hearing of different little changes to them thanks in advance
Here you go - you need Section R.18 (technical regulations for Road Rallies) from page 320. The red bits are revised for 2022.


https://www.motorsportuk.org/wp-content/uploads/20...


28hodge

43 posts

75 months

Monday 11th April 2022
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Did anybody to the De Lacy targa rally last year?

Sounds like a good route, and event, however seen some mentions of some issues with last years event. Though I think that was their first event so bound to be some learning.

We have done a little bit in catterick previously on a ilkley jubilee in 2019 I think and thought it was a great location, and the tests/off-road reg we did was brilliant, despite the puncture risk from spent shells, so would like to enter but I do like test diagrams that aren’t auto test esque and a bit more open and flowing with more stop boxes or code boards to reduce the avg speeds.

velocemitch

3,795 posts

219 months

Monday 11th April 2022
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Yes I did last years, it did leave a great deal to be desired, to put it politely!.
However I do feel they took on board the criticism and have learnt from their mistakes. As you know Catterick is a brilliant venue with so much scope, if you are sensible you can’t go wrong. I will certainly be entering again.
Do take some spare tyres though, I even managed to get a puncture on my Wife’s Panda doing a recce for the 2022 Jubilee last month!

28hodge

43 posts

75 months

Tuesday 12th April 2022
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velocemitch said:
Yes I did last years, it did leave a great deal to be desired, to put it politely!.
However I do feel they took on board the criticism and have learnt from their mistakes. As you know Catterick is a brilliant venue with so much scope, if you are sensible you can’t go wrong. I will certainly be entering again.
Do take some spare tyres though, I even managed to get a puncture on my Wife’s Panda doing a recce for the 2022 Jubilee last month!
Well hopefully they have taken on board the comments from last year, let’s face it nobody tries to put on a bad event, so I am sure a years learning will go along way to developing the event.

Will keep an eye out for the regs in may. Can you remember what the tyre regs were last year?

Hopefully get the clutch on the mini changed this next couple month and we can have a run out in that for the ilkley jubilee as well.

velocemitch

3,795 posts

219 months

Tuesday 12th April 2022
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Pretty sure they insisted on road pattern tyres, which I thought was a mistake. They told me it was at the request of the land owners, but I found that strange, I’ve organised 6 events at that place and they the never said anything!.

28hodge

43 posts

75 months

Tuesday 19th April 2022
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velocemitch said:
Pretty sure they insisted on road pattern tyres, which I thought was a mistake. They told me it was at the request of the land owners, but I found that strange, I’ve organised 6 events at that place and they the never said anything!.
Ta, looks like regs will be out on the 15th May and entries open 29th, or that's the intention anyway according to the club.

velocemitch

3,795 posts

219 months

Friday 6th May 2022
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White Rose Historic Rally for me this Sunday. Starting in Malton and heading mainly east by the looks of it (I heard we will be at Olivers Mount, but might be a false rumour)
3rd round of the HRCR championship, I'm hoping not to make a bugger of it like the last two and get a decent finish.
Out with David Crooks in the Mk1 Astra, Astra Challenge replica. Cool Car.

thepawbroon

Original Poster:

1,146 posts

183 months

Friday 6th May 2022
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Good luck!


I'm out driving on the Chin Memorial 20/20 Navigational Rally on Saturday night, first time competing in Kent. By reputation the rallies there are fun but challenging, so we are in for a night of it. 80odd miles and up to 20 controls!


PaulV

292 posts

225 months

Friday 6th May 2022
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Kemble targa for me this Sunday.
Double driving which should be fun.

Did the Stu Wood as a late call up to Nav a couple of weeks ago, that was a good event.
Good result for a first time pairing too.

105.4

4,065 posts

70 months

Friday 6th May 2022
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Bookmarked for future reference