Ford Escort RS Group 4: PH Fleet
Electrical gremlins aside it's a good first outing for Jesse and Yellow Peril
"I don't have pace notes so who knows?"
So what does a 'single venue' rally like this consist of? Well, no prizes for guessing all the stages are at one venue but it happens in one day too, making it convenient and cheaper to do than events spread over two or more days with stages all over the place, linked by road sections. Single venue events generally consist of about 50 stage miles over eight stages and usually, each stage layout is typically run twice with four different layouts set during the day.
There are no pace notes, the crew gets simple, A4 stage maps which are not to scale and the co-driver does his best to call what's coming from that. Unlike circuit racing where drivers can learn lines intimately by pounding round and round, year after year, the driver on a single venue rally gets a couple of cracks at each layout 'blind', and drives as fast as he or she possibly can. Challenging? Yes and knackering too, so it pays to get to know your car as well as a pair of old socks.
Nothing more than necessary here!
It was a cold start on the day so we kicked off with Kumho K12 super soft compound all round, but as the cool morning air gave way to a blazing sunny day the concrete turned into a giant hot plate. We switched to medium K51 on the rear (driven) wheels otherwise we'd have knackered a pair of tyres fairly swiftly.
Dust and rough concrete equals no grip
Down Ampney is dusty and rough so grip is at a premium because of that dust lying on the surface. Some of it felt as about as grippy as a wetted skidpan. The crumbly bits, of which there are a lot, didn't offer much grip at all. The Escort's engine is all top end and a 2.0-litre with so much power needs to be on the boil the whole time, in this case between 5,000rpm and 9,000rpm to make it fly. It's easy to mistake good low-down manners for grunt which isn't actually there, but linger in the lower rev range and stage times suffer.
Plenty more to do before Abingdon
Gremlin fails to stop play
As it turned out, the electrical Gremlin made the engine drop dead quite often (he's going to get it when I catch him) scrapping any chance of a result in the process. After ruling out the coil pack (thanks to Peugeot 106 driver, Chris Woodhouse, co-driver Rachel and mechanics Daz and Mark for all the help) suspicion fell on the battery isolator switch. We kept going anyway and I was able to have a proper play with the Yellow Peril's performance and the beautiful new and predictable handling balance for the first time.
There's more burning the midnight oil in the workshop to come. The gearbox will be refilled with a fresh charge of Millers extreme pressure oil, a new Gremlin-busting battery isolator switch is ready to go in and some new brake master cylinders too, as the hydraulics felt a little tired at Down Ampney. Can't wait for the super fast Abingdon with its 80-odd stage miles where the Peril will be in its element.
Some onboard with Jesse - hold on tight!
FACT SHEET
Car: 1978 Mk2 Ford Escort RS
Run by: Jesse Crosse
Bought: January 2010
Mileage: 1,000 stage miles since 2009
Purchase price: £36,000
Last month at a glance: The Corinium Stages are complete, bring on Abingdon!
Previous updates:
Enter the Yellow Peril! An intro to Jesse's Escort
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)My seats and belts are now out of date, also about a £1K to replace everything to get me going again - thanks for that MSA!! I'm sticking to hillclimbs for the time being which is almost as fun but cheaper.
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