Cooperman doing well
Discussion
What a really great event.
We were 17th (out of 120) at the end of day 1, 11th at the end of day 2 and, at the start of the very last test, at Caerwent in Wales on saturday evening, we were 8th overall.
I decided to take it easy and, I think, that caused a loss of concentraton by me leading to me understeering off on a tightening left-hander into a high kerb. It snapped the lower wishbone pin which immediately caused our retirement. My feeling is that if I had still been attacking hard I would have had the car set-up for the possibility of a tightening corner and could have generated sufficient oversteer to get round, or at least to have hit the kerb with the back end.
Enduro rallying really is fun. My 1990 Cooper performed absolutely faultlessly and the only problems were a wiper arm falling off whilst we were at a time control and a broken damper lower bolt which was easily replaced without any loss of time.
However, it was noticeable that the Mini with standard engine and box was disadvantaged against more modern machinery like the Pug 106 Rally, the Corsa SRi, the Citroen AX-GT and similar cars. We were about 2 seconds per mile off the pace, but everyone was most complimentary about the car and our decision to use it.
Our team-mate Chris Day was absolutely flying in his 1968 Cooper 'S', but, of course, he had better and lower gearing plus 10" wheels. He also seemed to have a lot more power than my car and was visibly faster in a straight line on one test at the Leyland Test Track where we ran together with him on his second lap whilst I was on my first, running one minute behind him. Pete Tyson was also going well in his 1971 Mk 3 'S' and he and I were setting quite similar times until his clutch went on the last day.
Disappointing to have made a very silly error on the very last test, but the 250 miles of closed road tests were fantastic - pity we only did 246 miles of them.
At one time our team of 3 Minis were leading the team award and beating the MG-ZR team and the Peugeot Team.
Read about the event in motorsport News tomorrow - there will be a full report.
I hope this encourages some of you guys to join me.
Thanks for your interest
We were 17th (out of 120) at the end of day 1, 11th at the end of day 2 and, at the start of the very last test, at Caerwent in Wales on saturday evening, we were 8th overall.
I decided to take it easy and, I think, that caused a loss of concentraton by me leading to me understeering off on a tightening left-hander into a high kerb. It snapped the lower wishbone pin which immediately caused our retirement. My feeling is that if I had still been attacking hard I would have had the car set-up for the possibility of a tightening corner and could have generated sufficient oversteer to get round, or at least to have hit the kerb with the back end.
Enduro rallying really is fun. My 1990 Cooper performed absolutely faultlessly and the only problems were a wiper arm falling off whilst we were at a time control and a broken damper lower bolt which was easily replaced without any loss of time.
However, it was noticeable that the Mini with standard engine and box was disadvantaged against more modern machinery like the Pug 106 Rally, the Corsa SRi, the Citroen AX-GT and similar cars. We were about 2 seconds per mile off the pace, but everyone was most complimentary about the car and our decision to use it.
Our team-mate Chris Day was absolutely flying in his 1968 Cooper 'S', but, of course, he had better and lower gearing plus 10" wheels. He also seemed to have a lot more power than my car and was visibly faster in a straight line on one test at the Leyland Test Track where we ran together with him on his second lap whilst I was on my first, running one minute behind him. Pete Tyson was also going well in his 1971 Mk 3 'S' and he and I were setting quite similar times until his clutch went on the last day.
Disappointing to have made a very silly error on the very last test, but the 250 miles of closed road tests were fantastic - pity we only did 246 miles of them.
At one time our team of 3 Minis were leading the team award and beating the MG-ZR team and the Peugeot Team.
Read about the event in motorsport News tomorrow - there will be a full report.
I hope this encourages some of you guys to join me.
Thanks for your interest
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